Maglor Fucking Feanorion
by KendrixTermina
Summary: "Among the seven brothers, only Maglor, Caranthir, and Curufin were married, but nothing is known of their wives." A tragedy in five acts. Or, the war of the jewels retold from the perspective of Maglor's wife.
1. Exposition

_God damn man-child /_  
_You act like a kid even though you stand six foot two /_  
_Self-loathing poet, resident Laurel Canyon know-it-all /_  
_You talk to the walls when the party gets bored of you /_  
_But I don't get bored, I just see it through /_  
_Why wait for the best when I could have you? /_

...

**First Act, First Scene**

He would come to be known as Maglor, Ruler of the Gap, though at the time this tale speaks of, he used to call himself by a different name.

Later histories would record his peerless musical talent and determined researchers might even have happened across one or the other reference to his particular agility in battle, but no one bothered to write down what he looked like.

Years down the line, when most living memory of his likeness had passed out of Middle Earth, this would lead to illustrations that depicted him as the distilled incarnate stereotype of a tortured artist, bare feet, lean build, soft sorrowful eyes, stringy dark hair in various states of disrepair and other such things.

Of course one could infer that he must have looked somewhat close to your average Noldo if no great deviations were noted, and no one would choose such a dark, scandalous motif if not to lean into the baroque, tragic beauty of it all…

And none of those conceptions would have been strictly incorrect, but what they would have failed to grasp was that placed amid his brothers with all their various noteworthy features, he must have been the plain one.

One plain by the standards of Aman would still have been a picturesque spectacle almost anywhere else but, if you were in Aman, let's say, somewhere in Tirion upon Tuna, visiting some sort of ball or soiree sponsored by the royal family, and hoping to sneak a glance at the very sparkly princelings, the eyecatchers among the lot would have been Maedhros and Celegorm -

Though most prospective dance partners at the gala would have known to stay away.

Even then, that whole branch of the family had something of a… big reputation, and it wasn't entirely down to their father's infamously quarrelsome temperament, or some impenetrable quality to their close-knit yet walled-off community that held itself apart from their cousins and uncles.

They usually stood by themselves, not wholly separate but certainly arranged around certain corners of the room, and their reputation preceded them. Visitors themselves here as was their father who had left the king's palace early in his youth, hushed whispering had announced their arrival, strong vigorous young men decorated not merely with ornaments, but with the products of their own craftsmanship – rumor had it that their father wouldn't have suffered them to showcase anything but their own family's work, and his sons were said to be chips of that same block:

Brilliant, moody and almost certainly controversial, with a frightening intensity burning in their eyes.

But even so, let us imagine that at least one hypothetical visitor to that gala had decided to approach them. Though the old tales don't tell us much of her, we know that she must have existed.

Perhaps she was wont to spend most of her time in libraries or workshops and wasn't up-to-date on the latest court intrigues so that she approached them oblivious to the aura that followed them wherever they went. Or perhaps it was the opposite and she was in fact particularly daring, neither daunted nor convinced by the cloud of talk surrounding them – having spent all her life in the carefree peace of Aman, perhaps she thought that the might have been something quite exciting about trying her luck with one of the infamous brothers.

In a way, the mixed reports regarding their character might also have made them more approachable in some paradoxical fashion – After all, these were not the batch of princes that were descended from High King Ingwe's own sister.

But even under the premise that someone was for whatever reason entertaining the thought of approaching, they might not have been so bold as to aim straight for him who, despite all, was still the eldest son of the king's eldest son. And even if they'd tried, they would quickly have thought Prince Maedhros' body language rather unreceptive to being courted. He would have dutifully greeted the visitsor and then, after the polite modicum of time, moved on to the next occurrence that was demanding his attention. Clearly his chief concern here was not pleasure, but politics. If he wasn't keeping an eye on his younger brothers, he would be aiding his grandfather's valiant efforts to smooth over any would-be diplomatic incidents in his father's vicinity.

This would have left Celegorm as the next most obvious target – He was certainly outgoing, handsome and eager to brag of his latest exploits as a hunter, but there was something quite aggressive about his manner beyond what might be attractive for the purposes of excitement and rather waken one's sense of self-preservation, which soon left the once blithe visitor trying to convince herself that she wasn't cowed or even going so far as to regret the whole venture or even trying to find something agreeable about the dour, rugged figure of Prince Caranthir.

Anyone attempting to make conversation with them would surely have caught a glimpse of the second-born at some point, perhaps as an unremarkable figure lingering around the orbit of Maedhros, but he wouldn't have caught her attention then -

Not until the part of the event for which he had agreed to provide some of the background music.

Maglor was remembered one of the best who ever lived – It was quite common for the opening bars of his performances to turn every head.

Somewhere in the crowd, Feanor himself stood in an ostentatious scarlet robe and smirked ever so faintly at the impassioned faces, particularly those of individuals whom he'd always wanted to show up.

But Maglor's own thoughts were probably very far from any sort of glory – he was wholly absorbed in his performance, the fibers of his face stretched taut between utmost concentration and heights of feeling as his long spindly fingers danced over the metal strings of his ornate, jeweled harp, and then when the time had come and the right space in the melody was reached, his voice rang out in song.

The citizens of Tirion were of course used to wonders and marvels. Soon after he had finished, the conversations would carry on as they had before.

Many had heard him before – the young lady visitor had not. The degree of technical perfection was almost to be expected, after all, the brothers were widely renowned for their many skills if not quite to the extent of their father. But other than the sheer skill, there was the flavor, the subject matter, roughly, the soul of it… and once she'd heard it, she somehow felt spoken to, she felt like she'd seen, just for a moment, a piece of the spirit that lived behind that face and, with those hands, had wrought this marvel.

His face altogether stopped looking like his face and started looking like him, and as such, he might well have looked like the artists had come to draw, and she began to think that he could look like that if he were observed from a certain point of view.

And she decided that she wanted to know him better.

"...what song is that?" the young lady might have whispered quietly, careful not to disturb the awe-inducing spectacle.

"Oh, he probably wrote that himself." Celegorm supplied, as casually as he might comment on any other antics of his family.

**First Act, Second Scene**

When next she saw him, she quietly disentangled herself from the conversation with his brothers – that is, she thought it was quiet because she didn't register much of it in the single-minded sense of purpose that filled her.

A few exchanged sentences into what looked to be a slightly awkward, but pleasantly quiet conversation, she told him what she'd thought of his music.

She had been called many things and would come to be called many others, most of them by him – and none more often than 'Dearest Heart', first bestowed once they'd made it out of the palace walls to some stray pearly balcony amid the tops of bright spires, his arms outstretched in a moment of exuberance, and there was certainly a fire there, wild and overwhelming as the rumors had described, but it was mystical and warm and brought a pink tint to her cheeks.

Beneath his reserve, he turns out to be all soft fluttering bird-heart feeling and proves surprisingly easily charmed.

His passion once roused, was desperate and torrential like something out of the ballads and epics he would sing of, and even before their very first parting, he had knelt before her and pressed a brief kiss to her knuckles, at this point, a chaste, gallant if grandiose gesture of appreciation and his eyes sparkled with more than just the light -

And like any reasonable person she briefly found herself wondering if this wasn't a little bit more than she would be able to handle but how often are you ever offered to be made the center of a world and have your likeness put into its constellation, and how does one resist such a thought.

**First Act, Third Scene**

So she took the name of his Dearest for herself.

Likewise, the minstrel himself came to have other names for her, but history wouldn't record them.

"I fall to pieces-" he whispers in her ears from behind with his slender arms around Dearest's shoulders, the mighty canopy of a great tree all around them. He's careful to chose his words with weight and say them meaningfully, perhaps like he imagined the feelings of the tragic heroes in an epic long before he became part of one, or penned them as anything other than a simple exercise in creativity, beauty for the sake beauty without the ties or strings of particular hurts.

"I fall to pieces when I'm with you."

And then he lets go and brings forth his lyre, and slaps the name of his Dearest Heart on some of his most recent marvels.

Dearest dimly suspects that the melody will be remembered much further than her name, try as he might, honest as his intention might be.

She watched him as he was looking at her, perhaps making sure to take deliberate note of his all-new, authentic thoughts and descriptions of this new situation, suspecting that they might be rarer and clearer than any he could have made up.

"Oh dear, are you making another poem out of me?"

"You can make a poem out of anything", he says, suddenly serious, discarding the rule of the sensitive lover for the well-honed master of his craft. "Meaning is in everything and anything, just waiting to be found. "All I do is listen and write it down."

It strikes her, then, that in that moment, she must seem to him as something much greater than himself, an embodiment of a principle perhaps.

But once they had brushed the matter of serious considerations ever so gently, her thoughts couldn't help to stray there as well.

"Is it alright for you to come here? I'd hate to be distracting you from your princely duties..."

He shook his head, smiling mildly.

"I told father that I wanted to revisit this part of the woods to get some fresh ideas for my newest work. That might buy us a long time if we proceed with care, I don't think he'd suspect anything..."

"Is it that usual for you to wander the landscape with nothing but your quill and your lyre? I bet when you get really carried away you won't do or think anything else for days on end until someone reminds you to have something to eat..."

"I can't deny it", he admits with an understated, slightly sheepish smile. "It's probably a bad habit I picked up from my father. Only mother could ever drag him from his workshop whenever he'd think of a new idea, and even she only managed it some of the time. He'd always be obsessing over one thing or another until he'd find something else and forget all about that first thing." If Maglor's words were somewhat melancholic, it was not without a sense of fondness to counterbalance the woe. "But whatever he does, he always gives it his all for as long as it lasts."

Dearest paused cautiously, thinking of how to carefully order her words so as not to offend, but then decided to speak plainly anyways: "...that sounds like you must have been rather lonely if your father was always so busy..."

"...sometimes I suppose. Maybe when I was really young and didn't understand it yet. But I've always had my brothers to rely on… and as I've grown older, I think I've come to understand him more. About his work, and about what's important to him… "

"Really…?" His Dearest raises an eyebrow and she wonders, for a moment, what it would continue to mean to be the Dearest Heart of someone who could come to understand that, see it as understandable, and file it away as an unfortunate circumstance rather than a cause for wrath.

The Dearest Heart of one who found that understandable might come to have much to lament – and yet, if the headstrong, forbidding shadow that was Feanor could have something in question with the gentle, sensitive creature at her side, then perhaps even he might be deserving of sympathy.

Flickers of thought show up as brief motions in Maglor's face.

Perhaps he is composing an answer, squeezing himself for his eloquence, no doubt valuing greatly that whatever he said would lead her to understand as well.

"When you have an idea it's like… it's not like something you make, not really. Maybe it feels like that afterward, but at the moment, you only see it. See what could be. And you know that unless you make it happen, what you saw will never come to be, and the very thought of it will disappear when you forget it. So you have to go and make it. For no other reason than that you want it to exist, and that it won't exist until you make it…

You can't let that inspiration go to waste… after all, you don't know if it will ever come again…

You may capture lightning in a bottle, but you can't do it twice."

"Honestly," Dearest mused, "It seems hard to picture that either you or your father could ever run out of ideas..." but she didn't know what more to say. This was rather outside her area of expertise.

But if she even shifted her weight to as much as disentangling herself, she'd feel his lean, tall frame leaning against her, an unspoken plea contained in his arms and shoulders and the points of her ears brushing against his chin.

Only much, much later could Dearest find the willpower to let go of his warmth.

"There's a reason I choose this place in particular. I presume you've heard that Father used to travel all around Valinor, exploring all its nooks and crannies and drawing the first maps?"

"So I've heard."

"Well, this is where we were staying when it was just Maitimo and I. We left before Tyelkormo joined us and stayed at grandfather Mahtan's house for a while."

"Not at the palace?"

Maglor shook his head. "No. Not with Lady Indis there," Dearest noted the conciliatory compromise there, the respectful address that still felt lacking, not in its lack of familiarity, but the ghostly expectation thereof.

"Since then, I come here from time to time, when I need some room to think."

"So don't worry about it, no one is going to suspect anything. No one else even knows about this place except for my parents."

Dearest scarcely needed to guess why, and faintly wondered what it meant to have become a part of that refuge.

There was, however, at least one more person besides Maglor, Feanor and Nerdanel who were aware of this location, someone who would have had to know it for the same reasons that Maglor did – but he only showed himself once Dearest's steps had disappeared into the forest and gone too far for even her elven senses to pick up the faint rustle of a tall, lean figure stepping out into the open. That thick red braid would have been unmistakable even if the Elf that made his way into the clearings wasn't one of the most familiar sights Maglor had ever known.

Still up in the trees, the minstrel knew better than to deny anything.

"Nelyo? How long have you been there?"

"Long enough." His tone was somber, his face severe, but not precisely angry. There was an approximation of what Maglor had come to expect from him whenever he'd scolded Celegorm or Curufin for causing some mischief, but there was a weight to it that stretched the comparison rather thin. Maglor himself had never been at the receiving end of that, not only because he had probably been the most well-behaved out of all his brothers, but because he and Maedhros were much closer in age – though he was older, he had never been quite as much of an authority to Maglor since he'd been just a somewhat larger child back in those days.

"I suppose we should have expected something like this sooner or later, but I always figured that the one with the secret marriage would be Tyelko or Curvo."

"...wait, secret marriage? You think we-" His noble attempts at maintaining his composure dashed, Maglor averted his flushed face, his blush rather apparent on his usually pale cheeks.

"Then you haven't? ...but knowing you, your intentions are sure to be honest." Maedhros exhaled in relief. "We might still be able to salvage this…"

"What do you-"

Maedhros didn't speak with the firmness of one giving a command, but he wasn't anywhere near joking either: "Macalaure. We need to speak to mother and father about this. And with that girl's parents as well. The sooner the better."

**First Act, Fourth Scene**

"What if we go to grandfather first? I doubt he would refuse us."

"He wouldn't because we're father's sons. If father insists on being against it, he will relent."

Maedhros sighed. "If it were Curufin or Caranthir, I don't think father would object. She might be a commoner, but she's a Nolde. Besides, many were surprised when father chose mother, but he did it because he wanted to. If it weren't for the circumstances, I'm sure he would be proud to see you do the same, but...

You're not father's heir, but very nearly. And you're the first of us to seek marriage. If father learns that grandfather set you up with a commoner, he may feel slighted and believe we're being overlooked in favor of Lady Indis' grandchildren. And if Finrod or Fingon ever have anything arranged with a noble, it is they who will have to deal with father's scrutiny, not us."

"Then what would you have me do? Tell her to get lost? To… avoid a misunderstanding?"

Maedhros took the look on his brother's face to mean that he wouldn't have done that even if he had tried his hardest to talk him into it. He might have been mistaken about that.

Clearly they needed a different option altogether. Even if Maglor and his paramour had not completed the rite, their fates might already be haplessly tangled up.

"...we must seek mother's advice in this matter.."

"Mother? She'll be only be mildly less opinionated than father..."

"Which is why she will not yield to him at the first sign of resistance. It has to be her."

**First Act, Fifth Scene**

If Dearest had been to enough balls to be comfortable with public scrutiny, she probably would have known better than to try and court one of the sons of Feanor, though of course, she might not have Maglor's attention in the first place if she had been that sort of effortless effervescent creature of extroverted charm.

They're ever so fascinated by tragedy and imperfection, those artists, and sometimes she hasn't quite decided yet how she feels about being thought about that way if that's something to relish or to correct…

But even so, she will already have to make her stand if she wants a chance to find the answer.

When she enters the room in her best robe, she is faced with two discerning artisans, and Nerdanel's only concession to the mercy her husband doesn't have is the lack of cutting remarks or pointed, skeptical eyebrows.

Dearest knows that she's going to be evaluated in more than just the usual disciplines of wife-material – They will be probing for her intellect as well, her will and her strengths and other things she never needed as a simple honest bookworm with Picante dreams a few sizes too big…

But if she's a dreamer then that would be one of the main things that she and Maglor have in common, more than they might marvel at their son's choice of wife, it is Dearest who spends much time wondering how her beloved was ever produced from such a pair of serial marigold-measurers.

**First Act, Sixth Scene**

With the passage of time, Dearest found herself with a pair of law-sisters.

Though younger, Curufin is the next to bring one home, somehow managing to do so at the pretty much the usual age. She hangs on to his arm and he calls her "Darling" with the relished haughty smirk of a braggart. She turns out to be the sort who would snicker at that, a high, noblewoman's laugh. She makes a shapely display for all the jewels he made her, and he in turn decorates himself with her own considerable lineage, pride and accomplishments. She wears her bridegroom's trinkets but the polished rapier that often hangs at her waist is of her own creation.

Feanor quickly takes a liking to her, and not just because Curufin can do no wrong in his eyes.

When little Celebrimbor is born, both her law-sisters are at her side right there with Nerdanel.

Caranthir doesn't show off a flashy Darling nor does he wax poetically about any Dearest Heart.

He couldn't have kept up much affectation even if he'd wanted to, and so settles for a simple, honest 'Sweetie'. It describes her well and though she is in almost all things the exact opposite of the gruff, uncouth prince, they seemed to harmonize all the better for it and it was, perhaps, the happiest union of the three. They never had the occasional loud, dramatic spats of Curufin and Darling nor the wandering, contemplative gazes of Dearest and Maglor. Perhaps Sweetie found something reassuring in having the tough, loud-mouthed Caranthir on her side while he simply took comfort in her gentle companionship.

They became common sights at the royal court. It became a polite habit to inquire after them. They sometimes sat at grand banquets with all three of the elder Kings. Both worrying rumors and tales of valor become regular flesh-and-blood relatives whose quirks one rolls their eyes at, and though the law-daughters of Feanor were all very different characters who joined his house for very different reasons they are eventually unified in the realization that it isn't so bad.

Their law-father might be a proud, headstrong and pedantic man, but he had more than enough virtues that might incline one to excuse him. And even if he would likely never quite see eye-to-eye with lady Indis and still at best avoided and at worst pointedly ignored his half-siblings, things weren't nearly so absolute in the younger generations. Darling didn't need to spend very long in their household before she noted that Dear Cousin Fingon was actually quite close with Maedhros, and Lady Aredhel often unabashedly showed up unannounced to visit the brothers – One might even have been tempted to the naive hope that through them, the rift in the royal family might be mended in time.

(It was just about then, high up on the peak of Taniquenti, that King Manwe decided that his bother really ought to have seen the light and come to his senses by now, in which he might perhaps have fallen prey to the exact same brand of wishful thinking, King of the Valar or not. )

**First Act, Seventh Scene**

Things started things, and one thing led to another.

Only much, much later would Dearest admit to herself how frightening it was that Darling leapt past her almost the moment their father-in-law had struck the first blow.

Instants later, her prized rapier was embedded deep in the chest of some Telerin sentry who had never done them any wrong in his life, and his slayer grinned.

As the ones who traditionally had the better singers, the Teleri would eventually have the last laugh in a sense. When that man came forth from Mandos, he would spin a tale of a Noldorin warrior's cruel sadistic smirk, of her ice-cold eyes and her brazen lust for blood – and as ever so often, fiction would only reflect reality somewhat incompletely. The glee that Curufin's bride had felt and worn on her face was purely one of triumph. She smirked not at that poor guard, but at the heavens themselves that she refused to be held by, and if these unfortunates had thrown in their lot with those who would hold them down, then they deserved whatever they would get.

Her husband had of course been right beside her, moving almost as a unit in the same second. Their backs briefly touched as they positioned themselves to take down their foes with methodic efficiency.

Somehow, these people they had lived with and dwelt among for ages had suddenly become their foes.

Maglor never wanted to kill. He'd never thought that the citizens of Aqualonde would be willing to fight to the death for those ships – but then what were they doing if not fighting to the death for their baubles? Maglor didn't know.

He only knew that if there was a heartbroken mariner making a desperate charge at his brother, wife and law-sister, he'd always chose his family over the stranger. He severed her head clean off.

But in his first shock over what he had done, he failed to note another Telerin sailor encroaching on him from behind. He was probably just an ordinary citizen of this port town, nothing even resembling a trained warrior – only desperation fueled his strike. And that might be why Dearest was able to intercept him. Her body practically moved on its own.

When she made her split-second decision, she only meant to get him out of the way, away from her beloved, away from the only ones who had no choice but to keep defending her even after she had been involved in something such as things because they were stained with the same blood.

All three of them had abandoned – some might say renounced – their own parents just to go on the path that brought them to this slaughter.

The Telerin sailor had been focused on Maglor, Curufin and Darling. He didn't see Dearest. She pushed him off the planks but she knew that wouldn't be enough – no one living in this city of water would have been unable to swim.

From the corner of her eye, she saw the metal anchor at the edge of the pier that has thus far faded into the indistinct background of her perceptive. She never knew how she found the strength to push it after him, but he didn't resurface.

She only saw his face for an instant.

Dearest hadn't been a fighter, not yet, not in Aman – She would learn to become one on the harsh battlefields of Beleriand. Sweetie never did – she'd hid away in a corner the moment the fighting broke out, head between her knees, hands shielding her eyes from the horror.

**First Act, Eighth Scene**

They didn't swear.

They stood in a circle around the blasphemous, heathen ritual without flinching, they cheered for their husbands' endeavor and without hypocrisy, none of them could have said that they recognized the folly in it, but they didn't swear.

In all the time they'd spent as part of the royal household, and especially in those last years at Formenos, they had grown fond of High King Finwe and they were certainly grieved at his passing, and at the same time, they had learned to be in awe of his eldest son's brilliance and eloquence, and they respected his iron will -

But they hadn't spent their early childhood with him wandering all across the continent of Valinor to map its entirety; They had known a world outside this grim circle with its own particular speech and its ironclad second versions of every story. Their husbands were the sons of Feanor and he would always be their father, but Dearest, Darling and Sweetie could still have stopped being his daughters. There wasn't the same push pulling them past the last vestiges of discomfort, and they didn't feel as tied to his fate. Certainly, they all thought, at this point, that it would be a good and worthy thing for the ones they loved to regain the family treasures – for their family had long become theirs, and the jewels were, at the time, in the possession of an abhorred foe whose loss no one would bemoan – but they took no oaths.

Not even Darling, who stood boastfully next to Curufin, shaking her rapier at the heavens and going on and one about how those accursed Valar would rue the day they choose to meddle with the might of the Noldor.

Only when the frenzied rapture of the moment slowly faded did Sweetie sit down against the mast of their stolen ship, trying in vain to shake off a profuse sense of dread.

Darling felt no such thing. She couldn't see any problem with getting back what was rightfully theirs. Certainly, she could see how others could twist or… misunderstand the words of the pledge to mean terrible things, but obviously that's not what was meant. Obviously, they were going to fight Morgoth, the one who killed their king, no, their ancient foe since Cuivenen, and they were going to do it because nobody else seemed to be doing anything about them. She might have inwardly judged Darling for her crassness, but in her heart, Dearest had believed their actions up until now to be perfectly justified.

Had you asked her, she would have said little one way or another regarding Feanor, but she would have assured you that she had gone along with Maglor her husband because he was a good person.

Any curses and dooms just increased her conviction of the Valar's caprices.

**First Act, Ninth Scene**

The Swan Boat was one of the most beautiful things Dearest had ever seen, and she felt like it would be a sin to burn it.

It had been the cherished life's work of some Teleri Elf whom they might quite possibly have killed, and they had sunk all of their care and dedication into it for days on end.

It would have been anathema to burn it even for the very noblest of purposes.

How could Dearest have denied it? Had she not joined the house of Feanor because she had been a lover of beauty? Because she liked to sit down and appreciate and marvel at the soul in marvelous works? How was it different from her husband's songs?

Somewhere far behind her, Dearest could hear Maedhros arguing with his father, but she knew too well that it would be fruitless. She herself had bowed low before Faenor's iron will.

And somewhere across this glittering water, Fingon, Aredhel and the others were-

She couldn't think about this. She had to think about what they were doing this for. The glory they would win, the foes they would defeat and justice they would attain, and the freedom they would surely gain – surely, no one had the right to deny them freedom, right?

But for the first time, Dearest couldn't suppress the doubt whispering that if they burned these ships and left their comrades for dead, such a thing would be no one's fault but their own?

How could the Valar force their hand when they were nowhere near?

**First Act, Tenth Scene**

None of them even thinks of putting any more children into this world, not with Morgoth's mountains smoking on the horizon, and certainly not so they should be chained to the bloody legacy of the oath.

* * *

I had two options. I could google some Quenya terms try and fail to make non-over-the-top OC names for them, or I could do something artsy fartsy to go with the stage motif. Being myself, I opted for the latter.


	2. Rising Action

**Second Act, First Scene****  
**

Maglor looked at his Dearest.

Dearest looked back at Maglor.

"O dearest heart of mine, whatever shall we _do?_"

"...I don't know."

"Neither do I."

He let his face sink into his hands, long thin fingers moving through strings of dark hair.

His face was pale and soggy.

On any other harsh day, playing his lyre might have made him feel a little better, but there was no more time for that. This moment alone with his wife was already the peak of what he could afford.

In a harrowingly short amount of time, he'd lost his grandfather, his father and at least one of his brothers, and it now fell to him to make the decisions. He had to figure out something to do, he _had_ to…

"...it seems very much like we are being punished, does it not?" the musician mused gravely, the corners of his mouth shifting into a mirthless, ironic smile. "Of course, I know father would be furious if he could hear me say that. I would say he must be spinning in his grave, if there had been anything left to bury..."

Still, Maglor hadn't as much as dared to touch his father's circlet.

Its cold silver gleam still counted him from all across his tent, from high upon the supply crate he had re-purposed as a makeshift desk for the correspondence of warfare.

He'd looked at all the plans and routes and inventory lists, but he didn't have the head for it… and for all his recklessness, Curufin _did. _

Maglor certainly knew what _he_ wanted to do, and even if there were any chance that Fingolfin should stand for it, his sons, retainers and soldiers most certainly would not, not after what happened – and there was no use in telling his brother to shut up; Much like their father, whom he much resembled, Curufin had always had his way with words and knew how to phrase things so that they were indisputably not wrong, even if they weren't exactly right either. His opinions carried much clout with the soldiers, and Celegorm usually went along with whatever he proposed.

Maglor grimly noted that he took less than the blink of an eye to lament his little brother's deviousness. Any appeal to righteousness would have rang hollow - They _all_ had spilled blood now, and given their losses, their cousins had all the incentives to remind them of that.

Another bloody conclusion seemed almost inevitable, just about as soon as the provisional royal pair would have to step through the entrance of the tent to face the proverbial music.

"If only Maitimo were here!" the Prince cried, his voice breaking. "He would know to handle this. He would _think_ of something-"

Unsurprisingly, Dearest found one long, lean arm wrapped around her waist while another still bore the weight of her husband's head and the heavy thoughts within.

Though he drew his wife near to his side, his face was turned away and partially obscured by the long, dark strands of his hair.

He clearly sought her warmth and wanted very much to be near her, he held her to his chest in desperation, but something seemed to hold him back from looking at her even as she realized his need and threw her arms around it, pressing a supportive little kiss to the arch of his jaw insofar as he let her.

"I'm sorry my love. I wish from the bottom of my heart that I had any means to make this easier on you-"

But she wasn't much of a queen any more than he could have been a king, and even receiving the closeness he's longed for, his joy was tainted by the heavy burdens of his responsibility and the accusatory burning of what might have been his conscience.

She noticed soon that he was leaning on her.

"It is I who should be apologizing..." he lamented, swelling to a crescendo as he continued: "Poor dear, what have I _done_ to you! I've stranded you here, all alone and far from your kin, left only with wicked murders for my company.

This is my father's war and I'm obliged to see it through to the end, but you are only here because you followed me on this fool's errand of mine! I took you from a land of plenty to share in my misery as I wait out the punishment for my wretched deeds, and now there's naught but sour labor and bitter strife left for us!"

With sudden resolution in her eyes, Dearest extricated her right arm and raised it up the face, reaching right for the side of his jaw that he wasn't showing her. Gently but decidedly, she guided him to look her in the eyes, duly noting the droplets at the edges of his own.

"Listen to me. If you're a murderer, then the same is true for me, and if you are to be punished, then I must surely receive the same punishment. It was I who made the choice to join or fates together, come flame or high water, and it was I who chose to follow you on your cause and take it my own.

It was I who pledged to follow you through the fair days and the grim, and I will not waver now. Whatever will be, will be. If it's within us to do something about it we shall, and if it's not, then what can be held against us?"

Somehow his head ended up on her shoulder and his arms tightly clasped around her.

She hoped he knew that she was every bit as starved for these last morsels of comforting warmth before it was time for them to go out there and conclude the negotiations.

But if she had been so fortunate to be just a little further from the epicenter, being there for him was the least she could do.

With her share of that responsibility in mind, she formed a decision:

"I _promise_ you, no, I _vow _to you, that no matter what-"

But he staid her hand, and spoke to her as firmly as she had ever heard him sound:

"_Don't."_

The steely dark gray of his eyes seemed harder than she'd ever known them.

"Honestly, please don't. I have pledged myself to this endeavor for the sake of my family, but your life is your own. I would never ask you to forswear it. Truth be told, I would greatly prefer if you didn't."

A cautious line drawn by a man who had only ever spoken to her in flowery exaltation should have been a grim sign indeed, but the ill-boding omens were so plentiful these days that both of them had grown numb to their prattle raining down on them.

"This might be yet another selfishness of mine that I might one day cost me dearly, but if you wish to set me at ease, it would be a great relief to me to know that you alone could still escape."

"Alright", she said, her resolve of quiet strength still unwavering. "Then I will not say 'no matter what', if that is what would lighten your burden.

In truth, I cannot claim to know what the future will bring. But at least right here and right now, I can say with certainty that there's nowhere I would rather be than here, and no one I would rather be here with than you -"

And he had not the grounds on which to admonish her for being dramatic, nor could he have faulted her for picking up an operatic streak in his vicinity.

All he could do was to clasp her tightly and wallow in his burning-hot, selfish hope that there would never come a day when she would run through his fingers like sand.

**Second Act, Second Scene**

The spouses of Caranthir and Curufin were given no such choices.

Had you asked the brothers, they would have asserted that they had nothing to apologize for, had you asked the ladies, they wouldn't have expected it.

Her parents hadn't understood it either, but though she was perhaps the most shaken by all that had transpired, Sweetie still kept to her simple, honest faith in Caranthir and kept to the comfort of his arms. He too grew frustrated with the situation and was given to grumbling about how they should just fight it out and be done with it without the delicacy to keep it private, but there was more bark than bite at work here. His Sweetie would sit with him for hours, his head in her lap, and soothe his tempestuous spirit with her song. Some would say that she might have failed to think through the implications and feasibilities of his assurances, but she sensed the feelings behind them quite clearly, and he truly meant them at the time. If asked to explain him, she would answer that he must surely still be upset about the fates of his lost relations.

Curufin was a different matter.

Somewhere deep down the very idea that his much idolized father could lose and be defeated must have put some cracks in his worldview, but there wasn't much to be done for the dead, while he still had his own life left to hold onto.

But truth be told, his Darling wouldn't have been terribly worried, or even grieved to hear if anything particularly unpleasant had befallen Fingolfin and his followers; She was all for seizing what was theirs and didn't much like the sound of letting others have it.

She figured that whatever else might come to pass, herself and her immediate family were sure to come out on top if they stuck with Curufin, for he was cunning, crafty, and knew to look out for number one. That was precisely what she had always valued about him. And if against all odds his pursuits should at last go pear-shaped, well, then Darling didn't fancy herself or their son to be all that much dumber than him. She knew to look out for herself as well, and that was part of what _he_ had always valued about _her._

**Second Act, Third Scene**

The negotiations went about as badly as one would expect.

What little goodwill Fingolfin was able to squeeze out after the curse, the betrayal and the death of his youngest child never had a chance against the brazen provocation spat forth by Celegorm and Caranthir. Curufin, who had quite deliberately set them up to it, was sitting between them in his chair with his fingers clasped together. The taunting smirk he wore was part of his bluff, but a guide for the calculating little wheels behind his eyes.

His wife stood behind him in steely support – their son stood back at the corner of the room next to Sweetie who had her mouth clumsily covered with the soft rounded fingers of her hands, both of them watching the escalation with dread.

Darling would have been standing with them if protocol hadn't called for her to take the seat next to Maglor at the end of the table right across from Fingolfin and the conspicuous absence of Anaire.

She was mostly looking at her fists, clasped tightly in a vain hope to hide their shaking.

The chair next to her was empty – Maglor has stood up and gone up to the table hoping to implore all the ones present toward moderation, but it was increasingly evident that he had lost control of the room.

No one was listening anymore when he slumped back into his chair and covered his face in his hands amid the escalating pandemonium.

Then, the clouds parted and the heavens opened up; What happened next_ felt_ like the rising of the sun had _looked_.

"_Stop this right now!"_

Maglor had often looked at his cousin Fingon and wondered how it was possible to fit this much gold on top of a single Elf.

Now, the question that came first into his mind was how he could possibly have managed to hoist this much of it across the grinding ice. Even the gold wires in his braids where still there still right where they had always been, but all evaporated swiftly when Maglor noted (not without a pang of guilt) that he almost certainly looked leaner than he used to.

Yet the bright smile of accomplishment upon his face could have been taken right from the innocent days of their childhood.

But it wasn't he who had spoken. Even Maglor didn't recognize the voice right away – it had grown hoarse and harsh, like no voice of one of their kind should ever have sound.

Recognition didn't kick in right away – for the span of a few moments, many of the gathered Noldorin nobles wondered if Fingon had brought some kind of filthy half-orc into their midst.

When understanding finally dawned on them, horror followed hot on its trail.

They had shorn him of his long, copper hair, leaving only a few matted tufts. Even wrapped in thick makeshift bandages, his right arm was distinctly shorter than it ought to be if his hand were still attached to him. He had been hastily wrapped into an ill-fitting, gaudy robe that was clearly a sample from Fingon's own collection and who knew what lay concealed beneath, but the ugly welts on his bony chest and the exposed collarbones didn't kindle much hope. Surely Morgoth hadn't suffered his once beautiful face to stay intact.

He was leaning heavily on Fingon just to stay upright; Despite his distinctive height, he was damn near unrecognizable.

Even some of the most hardened warriors gasped. Turgon, who all along had been as a gathering storm-cloud of tightly restrained wrath looming grimly at Fingolfin's right, now rushed to cover his daughter's eyes, and Sweetie might have lost her footing then and there but forced herself to remain standing for Celebrimbor's sake, though he honestly looked more composed than his aunt, not that this was saying much – and even Fingolfin, who moments before had been seething with betrayal could only feel grief at the sight of his brother-son in such a state, along with considerable shock when he realized just what his own son had only just attempted, and immeasurable relief at finding him whole and hale regardless.

Dearest couldn't find the will to move, but for Maglor, any horror he felt at the sheer sight was overcome by sympathy and concern, so he rushed straight to his brother's side.

"_Maitimo! You're alive!"_

The elder Prince replied in a rasp: "Barely. It was Findekano who saved me."

For that one moment, Maglor forgot that the feud they were supposed to be having at their father's behest despite the gasps this drew even from his own camp, and spoke while looking Finrod straight in the eyes: "We are all in your debt."

Without hesitation, he reached out his arms to help his cousin in supporting his brother's weight and only then turned to his uncle's delegation with a dead serious expression:

"We will have to continue this later..."

To the surprise of everyone present, Fingon included, Maedhros contradicted him immediately:

"No. I wish to stay for the negotiations."

He spoke with such grim finality that despite the state of him, no one so much as tried to dissuade him. There was a resolute fire in his eyes that sent a chill down the occasional spine and reminded many of his father.

The dispute was settled in a matter of hours, and for many years to come, Beleriand came to know a fragile peace, all because two valiant young men had held fast to their faith in their friendship in a time when whispers of treason were everywhere.

**Second Act, Fourth Scene**

Despite having ample reasons to avoid staying by himself at the Faenorian encampment, Fingon insisted on remaining behind for a while to stay with Maedhros through his recovery.

His relatives' understandable concerns bounced off him like rubber balls, and observing this, Dearest suspected for the first time that there might be something very deliberate about his trusting, good-natured approach to the world, not naive ignorance, but a bulwark of steely conviction that he kept up against the darkness that surrounded them. She could see why Maedhros liked him so much.

She'd liked him before, but she couldn't help developing some newfound appreciation for him.

Though there was no room for the illusion that their kinship still counted for anything, he insisted on standing by their friendship and made a point of greeting Dearest and her law-sisters like nothing had happened.

Not all of them appreciated it - 'not all' meaning Darling, who thought it somewhat dumb and rather curious and frankly didn't get it much. Though Caranthir didn't have much love for any of his cousins, his wife didn't let that stop her from being perhaps more friendly with them than seemed respectful under the circumstances; She probably simply didn't like to quarrel.

Dearest for her part found this brief semblance of normalcy to be a balm upon her soul and often sought him out.

Fingon's brother Turgon, perhaps out of necessity, was more cautious, and after making sure to entrust his daughter to Finrod, insisted on following his him, though he avoided direct confrontation and kept to himself, most often found by the small meltwater lake situated at the edge of their camp.

At various points, Dearest ventures a few ill-fated attempts at making conversation.

"...hello, Turgon. How's the wife?"

He didn't rebuff her, but he didn't mince words either:

"In the halls of Mandos, I would presume. As for her body she wore when you last saw her, she left that behind beneath a frozen lake midway across the grinding ice. My daughter lived only because I carried her with my own arms the last third of the way, and because my brothers and Aredhel took turns giving her their rations."

That day, she considered herself and her loved ones very fortunate that he was such an exceedingly patient man.

Oh, he supported their alliance, but only because he knew that further quarrel between their houses could only serve Morgoth, whose enduring threat was always on his mind.

Dearest was struck by the thought that, in a way, he was the only one besides Maedhros who seemed concerned with the need to come up with a plan. But she never learned what his plan turned out to be, and scarcely ever saw him after that day.

As for Maedhros himself, his own plan was pretty clear. Even with his body still in tatters, his mind was as focused as it had ever been and he seemed all the more resolved to spearhead the effort to defeat the black foe. It appeared that he had King Fingolfin's assent in that matter, having secured a voice in his ear by ceding the crown, not that it hadn't led to murmurs in their own ranks.

His only reply to both friend, foe and tenuous ally was that he would do what he must, whatever that may be.

As soon as he could stand, it became a common occurrence to see him training in the moonlight, determined to regain his strength as soon as he could even if it meant leaning to wield a sword with his left.

Where another man's son would have been hopelessly ruined by that kind of ordeal, he had returned like a Phoenix from the ashes, deadlier than before.

His hair grew long again and his scars faded to faint marks and minute irregularities.

Of course, it wouldn't have been possible to go back to the exact way he used to be before his captivity – The sound of his laughter soon became a hazy memory from the days under the stars.

After Fingon had departed, the elder prince stayed with Maglor and Dearest for a bit, but one icy day, much sooner than expected, under a pale, mist-shrouded moon, racked by the cold winds of winter, he garbed himself in heavy cloaks and bid them farewell to leave for his new Domain, not as a victorious Lord marching to seize the spoils of his conquest, but as a grim guardsman departing to begin his long, lonesome watch at the enemy's gates.

Even during the customary hug preceding their parting, Dearest didn't feel like she could really grab a hold of him, and she didn't need any mind-speech to know that Maglor felt much the same.

He had seemed almost intangible, like a revenant returned from the grave to fulfill some singular, single-minded purpose.

**Second Act, Fifth Scene**

Since Nerdanel had not followed her sons across the sea, this functionally left Maglor's Dearest as the House of Feanor's designated elder lady, a role for which she was wholly unprepared.

She had married a second-born prince who kept an excellent relationship with his older brother and was widely thought to be more interested in his artistic pursuits than any thought of rulership, the precise sort of aristocrat who might be forgiven for, or even _expected_ to wed a bookish, introverted commoner with no oratorical training whatsoever.

The duties of the office might have been lessened now that the brothers each spend much of their time scattered across their new territories, which, at least to Dearest never quite felt like homes or even splendorous palaces, but rather temporary strongholds of utilitarian purpose – and neither did the tenuous relationship between the various houses of the Noldor and the surrounding kingdoms of the Sindar and Nandor allow for many chipper courtly get-togethers.

To be honest Dearest had not been too surprised when Nerdanel hadn't followed them.

Even before the drawing of the sword, the disintegration of the crown prince's marriage had been fairly apparent to anyone in his house; Even their followers and retainers couldn't have missed the frequent loud spats that had been anything but subtle. In the end, it was said that he presented her with a long, detailed list of rules and conditions for how their coexistence ought to proceed in his opinion if they were to tolerate each other.

She had reportedly thrown the pile of parchments straight into his face, and that was that – from that point onward, they had avoided each other's quarters and had only ever shown up together at formal events in which Nerdanel had been chiefly been present in her capacity as the Princes' mother.

But it was not only for her experience and her own lack thereof that Dearest came to miss her far more than she ever expected.

Once she overcame her initial apprehension, she had actually come to _like_ Nerdanel, not in the least because she wasn't exactly what you would imagine the wife of a crown prince to be like.

Like her husband, she had been described as discerning, but with her it was more of a more temperate, more practical matter.

One was just as likely to encounter her in austere, functional work-clothes as in any sort of royal robes, and in the former, she might not even especially stand out, a plain, ruddy-faced lady of sturdy build, with strong arms honed from centuries' worth of work.

She always seemed to think of something to do, always quick at repartee, and it wasn't long before all three of her law-daughters relied on her for her words of wisdom. (even, no, _especially_ proud Darling, who much valued her input as a fellow artisan)

Dearest couldn't hope to fill the void she had left, but as she _was_ the lady of her house now, the least she could do was act like one of its members.

As one of their number, she couldn't be satisfied with sitting idle. Sometimes that meant accompanying Maglor to King Fingolfin's awkward frosty attempts to foster friendship and reunification so that their faction could present some faces to representatives of the other elven realms. It meant sitting at her husband's side and holding his hand under the table while Maedhros talked strategy with the High King; It mean announcing him before he took his seat at the harp and worked his Magic.

At other times it involved immersing herself in the ins and outs of bookkeeping to help with the rule of their new estates or sorting through his correspondence. Even if she would never be suited to receiving their various vassals and visitors, spending one's life among books did come with its own advantages, such as a well-honed ability for solitary concentration and a truly impressive reading speed. By the time she had the walls of their shared bedchamber lined with bookshelves she thought that though she would never be like Nerdanel and certainly wasn't a noblewoman, she might perhaps become her very own sort of lady, not the Elder Lady of the Great House of Feanor, perhaps, but the Lady of the Gap? That name, role and place become hers before she's really aware of it but she still feels a humbled blush of accomplishment when she realizes that she had very much done that.

She's happy, even if the pretty silken robes from Aman most often stay tucked away for special occasion in favor of simpler but warmer woolen dresses. Maglor too makes himself at home, though he proves quite undemanding for a prince reared in earthly paradise; Dearest thinks he'd be content on a bed of leaves under the naked stars as long as he could still bring a harp or a lyre. And she very much liked having more time all to themselves, all the peace and quiet which was so hard to come by with his complicated family situation, and a place of their own in which they could really settle into their married life for once, and set about to govern the lands they've been given.

The King of Doriath likes to maintain the fiction that he has 'granted' them these territories but none of them had pledged fealty to him, and he has had the good sense not to send any tax collectors or demands of tribute.

Amras got a fine patch of fertile green Earth (his older brothers had left him the first pick), though judging by his latest letters, Caranthir's territory, which at first had appeared roughly equal in worth, might turn out to be a rather promising trading post. Curufin and Celegorm also had trade routes and varied landscape features at their disposal, but would likely be mostly significant as holders of a military checkpoint.

Maglor himself then had been entrusted with a territory in direct view of the enemy, and the duty to hold the mountain pass it derived its name from- they had begun organizing the construction of watchtowers as soon as they had arrived. But at the same time, there was ample territory in front of the immediate frontier. It wasn't the sort of pure border fortification of little but swamps and mountains that Maedhros had volunteered himself for - It would barely be considered a margraviate if the one in charge of it didn't just so happen to be ranked as a Prince.

Their own territory was cold, too, and it probably wasn't going to end up as Beleriands' breadbasket any time soon, but they should be able to find all they should need to hold their lines and make a cushy, comfortable living for themselves. Dearest thinks that the peace and quiet will suit them both – she always preferred it anyways, even amid the splendor of Valinor.

As for her husband – well, in some ways, Maglor the Lord wasn't all that different from Macalaure the Prince. Instead of dutifully making sure to be seen at various social events in Aman, he now held court in a rustic wooden audience hall that they always meant to replace with a more permanent building of proper stone eventually, at some hypothetical point in the future when supplies were more forthcoming, but his passion for the arts remained unchanged… the same could not be said for the subjects of his works.

The dark days following their disastrous voyage had passed, but their shadow still haunted him – How could it not? Much of his family was now slain, far across the sea, or irrevocably antagonized. He'd stained his hands with murder, treason and blasphemy.

She thought of the sensitive nature that had once claimed to be undone just by holding her in his arms, the one who put his all in all his works – Now he stood beside her hardened and steeled, as committed to the fight as he was to his songs. His lyrics went from vivid fantasies about what epic tales _might_ be like to knowing _exactly_ what each horrible word meant, how every sorrow and every atrocity actually felt, and being unable to excise it all from his soul no matter how much of it he spilled onto parchments and sheet music.

Where he had once gotten carried away with flights of imagination and gushed about his inspired visions, or been moved to act by the longing to feel things he'd never known, to feel _everything_ wholly and truly, he was now driven onward by frantic intensity to honor the truth of what had transpired before it faded from his memory.

Sometimes he would be seized by some black inky mood and retreat to some corner of their rooms with one of his instruments, where he might stay for days forgetting the world amid papers, parchments and heaps of sheet music, finding a terrible cold delight in his latest creation and little else. It was during one of those distempers that he wrote his famous lamentation about the rebellion of the Noldor.

By the time he was deemed it ready to be performed in front of spectators, the rumors of their actions had already seeped through, and everyone immediately knew that it was about the kinslaying and there were quite a few shocked gasps and individuals who quickly averted their gazes, or were left quivering with rage.

Even Dearest, having heard it many times already while he had been composing its mighty resounding fugues, was again brought to tears with her back to a wall by the intensity of that particular performance.

He cared not and had kept playing through it all with his eyes squeezed shut.

The secret was already out – No point in holding it in any longer.

Her mother had once told her that one can't _really_ know a person until you've seen them in a moment of crisis, and Darling realized that it was probably meant as a warning at the time, and insofar as the objective had been to dissuade her it had been unsuccessful, but she had come to agree with the general principle.

She had to admit that Maglor had turned out to be more like his father and brothers than she had thought at first. She used to think that he didn't have any of that pedantic, unyielding strictness through which his father had used to view all things, that he was somewhat softer and milder and didn't have that same semblance to a nigh-uncontrollable wildfire that could barely be constrained or handled or even so much as redirected, but that wasn't true.

He had merely aimed it in different directions, turned the chief part of it upon himself rather than the world around it.

"It's no good! It's no good, my Dearest!" he'd exclaimed once as she had returned to her room once, finding him in a circle of scattered papers illuminated by the mystic blue glow of one of his father's famed lamps.

He scrunched up some sheets dotted with haphazard fragments of lyrics, and ran the paper-filled fists right through his face. "I just can't seem to get it right!"

It was futile to remind him that almost everything he produced and especially all that he actually put out was widely held to be nothing but timeless masterpieces.

In fact, his time at the Gap would come to be regarded as one of his most productive periods; Future scholars would discuss whether to ascribe it to the cold, gloomy weather or simply the transient nature of all things in middle earth both of which were deemed quite suitable for brooding.

But he couldn't get much satisfaction – not like he used to, if indeed he ever did.

Perhaps this had once started out with the critical voice of his father in the back of his mind, but over the centuries, it had morphed into something that was uniquely his own, echoing with more semblance of a conscience that his father had ever bothered with.

Sometimes Dearest had wondered if it wasn't that very critical attitude that was responsible for the extraordinary quality of his work, or if was his exceptional understanding itself that led him to see flaws that others would never distinguish.

She might, and often did sit with him for a while in such moments, but she came to learn that she wouldn't have much luck in changing his moods – that it was just simply what he was, or a consequence of what they'd done, and not any sort of failing on her part that she ought to have fixed, and that acceptance was a large step in growing into her new role as the lady of the Gap and the continued happiness of their union throughout the centuries of peace.

She let him be the spark of wildfire that he had always been, and found her own things to be busy with when he was occupied with his pursuits.

Their very arrival in Beleriand had been fraught with much strife, and though things appeared stable for the moment, they couldn't know when the enemy would strike next. It was quite possible that their future would bring many more battles, and once it did, Dearest wished to be prepared.

So she did what she had never had a reason to do in Aman, and picked up a sword to train with.

It is said that it takes a certain number of hours to master any skill. Dearest should have hundreds of years. If her law-brother could unlearn centuries' worth of muscle memory and not just teach himself to wield a sword with his left, but also attain an all-new, frighteningly sublime level of efficiency, then surely she should be able to attain at least a passable level of skill with both her hands in her possession.

The soldiers were a bit surprised the first time their Lady showed up to spar with them, but they went on to consider it an encouraging show of tenacity.

None of them knew whatever might befall when the doors of Angbad must burst back open at last, but every single one of their number would be ready of it.

**Second Act, Sixth Scene**

"Oi! You! Dark Elf! How do you think I like being called from my workshop in the middle of the night because there's some random wood-dweller I've never heard of claiming to be the husband of my good friend Aredhel?" Looking down with haughty disdain and waving around his pointy stick as a manner of emphasis, the snide, imperious, bauble-laden nobleman confirmed just about every unpleasant preconception that Eol had ever had about the strangers from across the sea.

"As my esteemed father always used to say… _Get yourself gone!_" the prince spat in disdain. "Last time I checked, Aredhel didn't_ have_ any sort of husband, and even if she _did_ it wouldn't be some half-wild _Avari! __Actually_, the last I heard of her was that she was supposed to be _coming here_. But when we got back here from our travels, she was nowhere to be found. You realize that this might look a bit suspicious?_"_

The Dark Elf explained.

"That sounds highly dubious to me. " He was about to raise his weapon in earnest, but then it occurred to him that if this man really _were _Aredhel's chosen husband, that might not be the right thing to do. Turns out even Curufin had standards.

So instead he lowered his blade, exhaling in frustration.

"Listen you wretch. Go get Aredhel, and go get her _right here._ And that son of yours, presuming you haven't just made him up. Tell her that my brother Celegorm wants to see her. Tell her I'm letting you go _this once_ just in case you're actually telling the truth."

Alas for Curufin, that one brief act of nominal mercy would not go unpunished.

**Second Act, Seventh Scene**

Then the fire came bursting forth.

The sudden flame burnt straight through all fortifications, and all their homesteads and what little they had build themselves in terms of independent lives was put to the Dragonfire.

Dearest's cherished new bookshelves should burn along with Maglor's many heaps of half-finished lyrics, and both their ashes mingling together in the end. Their entire homesteads and all the lands around them that they had grown used to and even grown to love in their own manner simply ceased to exist, blown away in an instant, leaving them only with the clothes on their backs and what little they could carry on their backs.

They escaped with a solid set of weapons, a few hastily grabbed choice keepsakes and family heirlooms, and Maglor's favorite lyre, a historical piece of fine silver that his father had once made for him out of pride for his accomplishments, the one piece in his collection of instruments that either of them had been able to salvage. Though vexed by the choice, he'd told Dearest to forsake it in the chaos on their escape, but she had insisted on fetching it anyways.

To her it was a symbol of all the things she'd come to understand about him right here in this place, so it was, to her, as if she had been able to save a piece of their keep and their shared history inside of it.

A little prideful part of her she never knew she had – perhaps the part of her that had grown to be the lady of the gap – felt an irresistible twinge of bittersweet joy at the idea that his thoughts would now always turn to her when he looked at it, just as surely as they would always wander to the memory of his father.

But her life as the Lady of the Gap had just been reduced to ashes, and she realized something crucial about Middle Earth that she had not fully grasped until this day.

They'd had to grow used to new places before – in fact they had to do that exact same thing when they first came here. But somehow, the prospect seemed… harder now. Like it would be a wearier work of diminishing returns.

They hardly had the time to dwell on it when it took all their effort just to stay alive and gather whatever survivors they could find in order to lead them to safety, but they were both the precise kind of people who would dwell on it anyways, especially on their long marches through the gray pathless landscape on which there was nothing much to do except think.

Dearest took some comfort from the weight of her blade, be it hanging readily from her hips or held firmly in her hand. If the servants of Morgoth wanted to take her life, they would have to come and get it.

The survivors of the Gap made good time, but less than a day after Morgoth's newest abominations first broke through, the landscape was already veritably _crawling_ with orcs and the like.

Their company pressed on for the better part of a week by day and by night, stretching out their provisions as thinly as they could afford, but eventually, Maglor was forced to confront the reality that they couldn't keep running indefinitely and least not without any sort of distinct goal.

He eventually gave the order to make camp on a bare gray hill. The company would be exposed, but at least they would see the enemy coming from afar, and perhaps they might buy themselves some modicum of stealth through some improvised enchantments and strategic use of tarps of the sort that were fashioned so as to blend in with the landscape.

Maglor left the first watch to whoever felt up to it (His wife was among the volunteers, but urged him to take the chance to lie down or meditate at the very least, arguing that he would be more use with a clear head, using a turn of phrase that made him think that she must have taken a few pointers from his mother) and began sending out scouts as soon as the second watch was rested enough to take over.

Besides searching for living souls and signs of intact civilization, they were to keep their eyes peeled for potential hideouts that their fellow survivors might relocate to if the orcs, werewolves and vampires were to catch up to them.

Five scouting parties returned empty-handed, and it seemed easy to believe that all the land down to all the hidden places had become choked under an avalanche of orcs.

Only the Sixth came upon another group of survivors – a band of Men, little more than a small family group led by their aged grandmother, together with a pair of Naugrim traders who had joined up with them to bolster their numbers and make themselves more dangerous prey.

Maglor's scouts had traded them their provisions and waterskins in exchange for everything they knew, figuring that they were likely to need them more badly than the elves did.

The dwarves had news of Thargelion: Its fortresses had fallen, but its lord was said to have fled toward the south – likely to meet up with Amras, and either hold their line in Estolad or pool their forces to make their escape together. At the very least, they were both alive by the time that the traders had come by the news, and were likely to stay that way if they should actually manage to meet up. However…

"...no word of Celegorm or Curufin?"

"None that made it to our source."

So they had dropped off the map. Which might well mean that they had found somewhere safe – The forces of Morgoth would scarcely pass up the chance to demoralize the hosts of the Eldar by letting it be known what exactly they had done with their lords.

Maglor wasn't entirely sure if he should be more worried at the prospect that they might get _into_ trouble, or one of them _causing_ the trouble in the first place. But surely an experienced hunter like Celegorm should be able to survive in out in the wilderness as long as he pleased.

But it was the Men who brought the most salient piece of news: They were seeking some of their kinsmen which dwelt in a village – a minor hamlet, really – that was still deemed to be safe because of its relative proximity to the fortress of Himring.

"It still stands?" Dearest exclaimed in amazement.

Maedhros lived. Better yet, Maedhros still had functional castle walls to hide behind.

Somehow, against all odds, he had avoided being overrun where so many other realms had been washed away like footprints on the beach by tidal waves of molten rock.

Exchanging a decisive look, Maglor and his Dearest nodded at each other.

"Then it is clear where we must go."

Though the Prince would have preferred to meet up with Caranthir and Amras as well, they were much further away in the opposite direction, and if they had truly gone south, the chance of of a successful rendezvous looked slim – the area was simply too wide. And there was no telling _where_ the other two were, or what they might be up to. Right now, their foremost obligation was to get the survivors of their own realm to safety. Such was their last duty as their Lord and Lady.

So they would make for Maedhros' lands. They had visited with enough regularity to find the way without effort, but alas, the redhead had insisted on taking what hat got to be single worst path of land in all of Beleriand, at least among the places that had no notable infestations of balrogs or giant spider-creatures, which had, of course, been a typical Maedhros thing to do…

It was bitterly cold, filled with inhospitable swamps and practically right in Morgoth's backyard, though Maglor thought, in his usual darkly-poetic manner, that it could in some ways be considered a fitting abode for the person his brother had become over these years of endless bitter strife.

The narrow, oblong territory offered only the choice between largely flat and wide-open marshlands and the bare rocks surrounding Himring itself, both of which they would undoubtedly have to make their way through if they were to seek the fortress itself, all of this under the assumption that it would continue to be a fortress for the foreseeable future.

They sooner they set out, the sooner they would be able to commit their blades and arrows to its defense.

Due to the widespread breakdown of communications resulting from the sheer chaos and devastation, it would be a good while before any any of them to begin to grasp the extent to which the Noldor as a whole had suffered decimation on that fateful day.

But right then they had all their hands trying to navigate not just the usual difficulties of the land this far north but the parts of it that no longer looked remotely familiar because Dragonfire or streams of molten rock had reshaped it to blackened slag pools of hardening basalt.

The heady, unreal feeling that finally accompanied the walls of Himring was cut short almost as soon as it could be described.  
They must have been expected foes.

Most ordinary mortals would have seen only swift shadows, but Maglor, Dearest, and their company were quite aware that several armed scouts, probably archers, had descended from the mountains all around them. Only when they were clearly in place did a party of warriors follow, and while the stealthier troops that preceded them must have had some sort of camouflage, the second wave was intended to face the threat head-on and did not even bother with the _semblance_ of disguise.

They mostly wore long cloaks for hardy, long-lasting materials like wool or fur, which stood out against the landscape, dark against stark white, and at the head of the grim company, where he would have stood straight in the path of any would-be danger, stood a remarkably tall, long-limbed figure with a large black sword held in his left hand.

His long red hair blowing in the harsh mountain winds against the stark white backdrop of ice and rock looks a lot like fresh blood upon virgin snow.

He is garbed in black save for the crimson mantle on top, which is held in place by a brooch bearing the single, eight-pointed star.

The lone ornament seems much better maintained than anything else he appears to have access to.

He actually still appears fairly handsome; One could easily esteem that his face might have been something to behold before someone decided to break it and left slight, subtle marks and irregularities where it never _quite_ went back the way it was.

Long, long ago, when he was born, he must have been an innocent creature, gladly welcomed into the world by loving parents – his mother had looked at him and, in the manner typical of new mothers, decided that he was the most perfect thing she'd ever seen down to each of his perfect little toes, and, being the practical sort, got the matter of his naming taken care of right then and there.

'Beautiful', they had called him, and 'destined successor', expect to end up anywhere other than right here. Darling thought of the handsome, well-liked charismatic crown prince she had met in Aman, and wondered briefly if the grim-faced, one-handed warrior before her still remembered his ghost sometimes: but those were faded dreams from distant shores.

He called himself something else now.

Standing before her was Maedhros the Dispossessed; The left-handed, the scarlet-stained, the pale-glitter, ruler of lonesome snowy peaks. Yet few who had heard that name in the green plains to the southwest in the bygone years of long peace would have associated it with tenacious valor or thankless dedication.

He could not have reached out a hand in greeting without sheathing his blade, and he dared not to do that while outside his walls, but he lowered it once he recognized that they were the furthest things from foes. Surely he had readied himself for another desperate stand – instead, his relief, though subdued on the surface, was unmistakably deep-rooted genuine.

"Brother…! ...and you as well, sister."

Honestly, Dearest thought that he was doing her too great an honor with that appellation, but then again her plain name seemed much too casual - 'Lady' was already quite a stretch when coming from his younger brothers, and he himself was still her husband's elder.

The change from life in the gap to life in Himring was like waking up from a dream to find yourself in another that is just as bizarre and complete in its rules and intricacies, and yet doesn't feel any more real. Once in a while, she thinks of some servant, vassal or associate who was part of her everyday life back at the gap, and finds herself hit with the realization that they are most likely dead.

When will they have to flee from here as well, and leave the stones of these walls buried in the snow? Himring is nothing like their old homestead, of course, it a stronger place, but that only makes its martial purpose more apparent and present in her mind.

This, at last, is a frontier citadel fully dedicated to warfare, and if it was ever anything else, those days must have been long past. As of now, Himring contained warriors and whatever was needed to maintain them. Its lord placed them in a modest, austere suite that was not yet stripped of the previous occupants' belongings when he first showed it to them. Maglor, of course, insisted that he didn't want any brave soldiers who had defended this place for years to be evicted for their sake, but Maedhros had soon cleared up the misunderstanding – the pair that once lived here had been counted among the fallen. They had suffered heavy casualties; Maglor, Dearest, and what warriors they could bring are a welcome relief. The lord himself attributes their survival to the mountains and a paper-thin margin of luck, but each of his men-at-arms seems to recount a different deed of wonder through which the elder prince had preserved them all, and yet Dearest had little trouble believing them.

Maglor is made his brother's herald and chief advisor and receives the seat beside him in all councils of war. Long used to working beside Maedhros, it is not that big an adjustment The strong voice he honed to fill large, high-roofed theaters with song is put to the crude use of yelling orders down from the walls or far across battlefields – though he never liked to think of it as his primary pursuit, his skill as a swordsman is beyond all question. He has _long been _a storied warrior_,_ perhaps the swiftest within the walls of the fortress; There are those who would call him worse than that.

But it is a not a life he would have chosen, and of all, his Dearest would have known the most of how this grim reality weighed on him like a subtle, but permanent shadow as sunshine and warmth dimmed by a passing cloud.

It is more out of longing and for his own peace of mind that one wan, fallow morning finds him playing his lyre in the citadel's inner courtyard, but by the time he is finished, he has drawn well nigh the fortress' entire garrison, including his brother and wife, both of which, having seen him, cannot help but exchange a relieved, knowing smile, and suggests that they make this a regular occurrence. Maedhros might have earned his law-sister's lasting gratitude by backing her request, though he argues that this would not just be a concession for Maglor's sake, but probably for the good of the stronghold as a whole, whose weary knights and soldiers long had long gone without the things of beauty that had always been their delight, and she could only concur: Surrounded by darkness, all of them should cherish anything that should keep them strong. Likewise, he wants Dearest to preside over regular gatherings, and sensing her hesitation, argues that she would surely be well-loved, for there had never before been a lady in Himring, not even a reserved, bookish one. He had always been a skilled leader who often thought of ways to bring people together, but he still quietly expresses his appreciation when his plan works better than expected, and Dearest hears from one who would know how how much he believes her to have come into her own:

Her beloved collection of books might be ashes, but she still carries many of the stories within herself, and first sparked from one individual conversation, she comes to fill designated evenings around the fire with the telling of tales. In time, it even comes into her mind to devise her own one, and when she'd finished reciting her first fumbling attempt before her husband alone, a light came into his face like she hadn't seen it since the day of their flight, and he proudly kissed her cheek.

They make a weekly occurrence out of it: She would tell her tales, he would play his music, and his brother would often attend though he couldn't add much to the merriment.

Like any other room that Maglor ever owned, their once sparse chamber fills with scattered sheets scribbled full of half-finished lyrics. In his songs he laments the burnt lands of their lost realm and the solitude of the icy mountain peaks, giving form to the feelings that every single inhabitant of the forest must have been feeling – but scattered in between is that one dreamy piece named after the _Lady of Himring,_ whom the soldiers had begun to call the _Tale-Weaver._

Thus far, Dearest had only ever used the names her parents had given her, which, to begin with, had never been too different from each other, just two ways to describe the same thing. At the time of her arrival, she had consulted his help to transliterate the metaphoric description therein into Sindarin in a fashion that conserved the figurative rather than the literal meaning.

Now, this new appellation had come to be without all his involvement, but he quite liked it:

"So you've made a 'weaver' out of yourself… " he told her privately with a glint of enthusiasm in his smile. "It suits you well. I am certain that father would be pleased. He might liken it to grandmother's title...though I have no doubt that he would also have dissected your work down to the most minute details of word choice and structure."

Hearing a melancholy tone creeping into his voice towards the end, Dearest tightly gripped his fingers. "Do you miss him?"

"Without end. He was strict, and he might have done some rash things when we arrived here, but he was also-"

"He was your whole world once."

"Yes he was. That describes it very well. A tale-weaver is exactly what you are proving yourself to be, my Dearest… but I wouldn't know what he would even do if he were here with us now. All the world has changed. For one thing, the Aftercomers weren't really anything like what he had feared. But the hosts of the enemy are much increased as well. With our situation as it is, I wonder how we shall ever do as we have pledged..."

Her hold on his hand tightened. "You're still thinking about it, after all of these years?"

"We must. We took an oath while our swords were still dripping with blood."

She had nothing to say to this, so all she could do was to place her head on his shoulder and draw close to him.

Suddenly it was impossible to forget that they were walled in by a stronghold that was besieged on all sides by hordes of vile abominations, and though she had found her place inside the bulwark, she was beset by an inner restlessness that spoke the loudest when she was alone.

Modest and functional as its contents might have been, Himring _did_ have a library and reading room, but she couldn't set herself at ease there. Instead, her unquiet wanderings often took her to the courtyard, where she would swing her sword in the light of the moon. When she had exhausted herself, she would seek the cool night air on the battlements and overlook the surrounding mountains, and be struck by the thought that for all she knew, the whole world out there might be overrun, with nothing left out there but orcs and nothing remaining but their little walled island.

Sometimes, she would see foreboding wafts of fumes dissolving into the sky, perhaps even coming from Thangorodrim itself, or spewn forth from some other fire of destruction further inland.

On such an occasion it would happen that she came up the wooden stairs to find that she was not alone on this part of the ramparts – Looking out at the mountains, fixating some indiscernible but specific point beyond the horizon was the Lord of Himring himself, more than a head taller than her and clad in a thick, dark cloak. A hint of red on his cheeks suggested that he had been out here for a while.

Surprised to have company, she did not manage to speak before he did: "Sister. Did you not expect to find me here?" He did not state the reverse, and it became apparent to Dearest that he must have known about her nightly exploits. Feeling oddly exposed she found herself falling back into some her old shyness, but ever the diplomatic negotiator, he disarmed her of her worries, which once dispelled only served as cause for mild embarrassment:

"You're already in full gear. Come spar with me."

She was, of course, aware of the clear maneuver to reaffirm the trust between them and get her to open up, but the offer genuinely intrigued her, and if he were to succeed at persuading her to confirm his suspicions as to what she wanted, it would have been because he had guessed exactly right.

"Your technique is quite good", he observed matter-of-factly between swings that clearly outclassed hers by magnitudes. "I can tell that you must have been practicing for a long time. But what you lack is practical experience of real combat. If I sent you out as you are now, I would be doing nothing short of throwing you to the orcs."

"I never said-"

"But it _is_ what you had in mind. Why you were practicing by yourself in secret, and why you agreed to my request just now. You wished to assure me of your skills, did you not?"

A 'Tale-Weaver' she might have been, but the shadow that had kept her up still defied her skill of description, so instead, she said:

"...Back at the Gap, I used to do our bookkeeping, but I do not presume that you have failed to bring accountants of your own, and I could not hope to match the skill of your retainers who have been managing the affairs of Himring many years now. My hands grow weary of idleness."

"That you took over the checkbooks doesn't surprise me one bit. My little brother never did have the necessary stringency for such sublunar matters."

Their duel, which had been coming to a standstill as their conversation grew in focus was now ended completely as Dearest burst into laughter despite herself and all of their grim surroundings. Even the elder prince himself chuckled for a bit.

But this his countenance grew more serious even than before, and he paused to look up at a dark streak which even in the moonshine, appeared to dark to be comprised of natural clouds.

"I understand your desire for action, sister, I truly do. But the enemy is capable of much worse than you imagine. So I will prepare you, and hope that you will be tested later rather than sooner.

Have at me."

It was around that time that Dearest found herself growing rather fond of Maedhros. Sure, she had always _liked_ him – Many did, at the time, and it had always seemed rather natural that they should get along, seeing as he was very close to Maglor, besides, he had struck her as good and reasonable from the first. But now, her own family was far across the sea and she hadn't seen them in centuries. She'd been her parents' only child, which might have played its part in sparking her interest in solitary pursuits, and though she had been daunted, she had also found it exciting that she might become a part of such a large, peculiar family filled with strong personalities. Of course, that was a long, long time ago, she could not even be certain if that proposition still held true. For all she knew, her parents might have conceived again in her long absence, and given her part in the rebellion and the kinslaying, she could reasonably count herself as forgotten and disinherited. The Dispossessed would be the first and the last to call her the name of 'sister', and now that they had spent more time in close quarters, it was bound to stop sounding quite so strange.

Sometimes, when they had gone for a good while without seeing their enemies when the sky was clear and bright enough with sun or stars for her to almost believe that Himring might last, she might find herself considering what a splendid mentor he would be for any brother-son set to succeed him, what a gentle father Maglor would make, nay, how very adeptly he might sing a child to sleep, how she might sit by their bedside and tell them stories - But the memory of not-quite-empty ships burning always staid that thought before she would even think to voice it, and before long, Dearest always found new reason to reach for her sword.

Despite her law-brother's best efforts, her first real brush with the foul creatures of Morgoth wiped her mind of all but bare naked fear, and there was no thought of techniques and stances to be found in it; She made her first thrust almost blind and frantic, but her instincts had proven sharp once before at Aqualonde. One wrong move and she could have sunk here, but instead, she swam, and continued to swim, cleaving through a sea of orcs until it became second nature.

**Second Act, Eighth Scene**

When Curufin and Darling washed up near the doors of Nargothrond accompanies by Celegorm, their son Cerebrimbor, Celegorm's Valinorian Hound and less than a dozen of their most loyal retainers, they had been cut on from greater civilization for a good while and looked rather worse for the wear, recalling pieces of driftwood long tossed about by the currents.

Sure, they had most certainly survived, but this only meant that they themselves were in decidedly better shape than the raiment and equipment with which they had fled.

One day they had woken up ruling all of Himlad and toying with the thought of switching their stuffy, thick-walled, utilitarian keep for a larger residence that might actually be described as a palace, and the next, they had found themselves hidden in a crevice of bare rock.

The last time Curufin recalled sleeping on the ground, he had still been a boy, traveling around Valinor with his father. While Celegorm and, to a lesser extent, the twins, had much thrived in that wildland life and loved it, Curfin himself had always preferred the times when they had been staying at the palace in Tirion (more the idea of it than the practical reality that involved their uncles and cousins other than Aredhel) or the halls of Aule, for that matter, rare as those instanced had eventually become in the latter years… though he didn't recall the forest floors back in Valinor being quite as… mucky.

Celegorm might have been fine with living outdoors, but he was all the more indignant to have no news of the larger world or the state of the war. He much preferred being the chaser rather then the chased and despised sitting idle, and though Curufin wasn't as brusque about it, he couldn't say that he was happy without a proper workshop at his disposal.

He ended up sharpening or, more than once, carving little figures in a surprising amount of wooden sticks to cool his head.

Since her arrival in Beleriand, Darling had started to go by a Sindarin epithet that she thought to mean 'steel-gleam' for her quickness in drawing her blade on the field of battle, though the original intention behind it might rather have been to imply that was, as it might have been phrased in another place in time… well, _trigger-happy. _

However, this no longer referred to the same weapon she had wielded at Aqualonde. The sword she now carried, through still a rapier, was a different one, one that her husband had gifted her on the occasion of her one-thousandth begetting day. For a long time, she had left it virtually untouched except as decoration for official functions, but eventually, all that counted was that he could fashion it lighter and sharper than she could – more so than anyone else on this side of the sea, in fact, now that his father no longer resided here, so it was no more reason to be embarrassed than, say, being shorter than the King of Doriath or not quite as fair as his illustrious daughter.

At some point over the long years, pragmatism had won out over pride.

At first, Darling had thought her time there to be very pleasant and for the longest time, she would not even _dream_ of regretting the choice to leave Valinor. Like her husband, she had been languishing for a challenge in the Valar's perfect little paradise, and she once would have called the unconquered wastes of Middle Earth a place after her own heart. Or what she fancies to be unconquerred wastes, anyways. She'd always been an ambitious sort. Already she had managed a pretty big jump when she went from her birth as a member of the gentry to family of scribes and court officials to being the wife of a prince, but she found that she liked being a landed Lady a whole lot more.

Herself, her husband and his brother had all of Himlad all to themselves, and their word was law. The three of them could do whatever they wanted as long as they could get the other ones to agree, and honestly, Curufin and Darling had always been _very good_ at making others listen to them. His brother might be his elder, but that mattered little when Curufin understood well enough how to play him like a fiddle.

And besides, Darling actually liked him.

They were both fierce fighters, and he'd very much earned a nigh-permanent spot on her good side all the way back in Aman by often doing a great job at watching little Celebrimbor whenever Mommy and Daddy wanted him out of their hair for a little bit so they might actually get some work done.

In the good old days, she and Celegorm had often flanked Curufin on his right and on his left as they went about their various exploits.

They never grew quite as… cozy with the mortals or the dwarves as even some of Curufin's brothers did, but as a matter of scholarly interest neither of them could resist them or their bizarre customs and ways of living, and of course, they invited many of the traders and artisans they met back to Himlad.

When they wished to travel incognito without necessarily letting it slip that they were nobility, they would introduce themselves simply as 'a couple of artisans', whereupon Curufin could seldom resist adding: "Like my parents and grandparents before me, and like our son" with a refreshingly genuine sense of boyish pride.

It was on these occasional visits to the ancestral realms of Naugrim that Celebrimbor would get to know their ways more intricately than very nearly every other Elf – his father being one of the very few outsiders to ever master Khudzul. (Darling for her part never came to be as fluent as Curufin could afford to be with his unique once-in-a-generation kind of talent, but she understood and spoke enough and she could use it to confer in private with her family when she didn't want other elves to overhear)

So ironically, there had actually been a time when Celebrimbor had been quite proud of his family and their lifestyle, which, in times of peace, he had believed to be one of enlightenment, scholarly pursuit and dedication to beauty. If others looked at them as if they were barbarians, he would ascribe that to their not understanding their open-minded, unusual customs.

He could almost forget about everything he'd heard concerning his parents' actions at Aqualonde.

But it was one thing to be a saint in paradise, and another for the long centuries of tenuous peace to be over. During his time in Middle Earth he had ceased to be a youth, so he would see whatever should come next with the eyes of a grown adult with fully developed critical faculties, who saw no good reason why mother and uncle Celegorm should greet one of their own kinsmen with drawn blades.

A young man whom Celebrimbor didn't immediately recognize as Orodreth, his... second cousin one removed? In any case he too almost drew a blade as did several of the other brightly-armored strangers appearing from out of the wood-works, and only the golden-haired Elf who was clearly their leader staid them with a motion of his hand.

The leader who, though he was decked out in considerably more royal bling than they ever remembered seeing on him, could only be Finrod, son of Finarfin, though he had since come to be known by many other names. Despite the wary responses of Curufin and his wife, he greeted them with open arms and a welcoming smile.

Even so, Celegorm the Fair and Darling Steel-gleam might have come to blows with him if Curufin had not motioned for them to stand down, much like Finrod Felagund had called back his own followers.

But his motive could not have been more different. In his heart, he felt much like his spouse and brother, but in his mind, he perceived that he clearly did not look like he had been wandering in the wilderness and they might net themselves a safe place to stay if only they could feign to play nice for a little bit. It was nothing more than simple logic. Darling could handle herself and even Celegorm might manage it in a pinch, but the had that naive and stubborn kid to think about it.

Even if it took just about all his self-control to refrain from correcting Finrod when he addressed them as his cousins as if they actually shared both grandparents.

"Celegorm! Curufin! ...and Celebrimbor, too, right along with his mother... It's such a relief to hear from you. We had no idea if you were even still alive… we've lost so many in the devastation..." He really did at an admirable job at making it sound natural. "Insofar as I heard, your brothers are scattered, but alive. I believe two of them are in Himring, and the other two are hiding in Estolad..."

"Wait, what exactly-"

But Celegorm interrupted before Curufin could finish formulating his question. "What happened in Thargelion?"

"...You don't know?"

**Second Act, Ninth Scene**

"So Fingolfin is dead?" Celegorm exclaimed, jumping to his feet before Finrod, whose patience had already been strained quite a bit today, And you mean to tell us that he challenged _Morgoth_ in _single combat_?"

"What was he _thinking?_ Was that supposed to be some attempt to one-up father or what?"

Darling alone had other concerns: "Wait, so who's the _king_ now?"

That seemed like the safest question to answer: "Our cousin Fingon."

Curufin's cunning failed him here and he could not restrain his indignation: "Passed up _again_!"

It's a good thing that they had shooed Celebrimbor out of the room earlier or rather set him loose with the promise that he would be free to admire the architecture of Nargothrond to his heart's content. Without the need for any further encouragement, he practically floated out of the room with bright stars in his eyes.

That did score him a bit of a glare from Darling; If eyes could speak, hers would have been saying some variation of: _'Not now you idiot!'_

Even if some small motions in his face might have given away that he might be inwardly counting to twelve, but he seemed thoroughly determined to maintain an amicable air. Perhaps he kept inwardly reminding himself that at least for him, this was politics, part of his duties to maintain stable relations and alliances as King of Nargothrond; It wouldn't have compared to what his own father and uncle must have experienced when they were but little boys with no explanations for why someone who was supposed to be their family didn't want anything to do with them – and even so, the late king had kept a rapport with Maedhros and might have wanted his successors to do the same so it wouldn't do to throw his brothers out in the wilderness before giving them the chance to inflict immediate reasons upon him.

Unable to keep a certain somber quality from coloring his voice, he, at last, decided on something to say: "I wasn't there to bear witness, but I was told that it was a glorious, worthy end. The orcs did not sing songs of victory that day. He fought as valiantly as anyone could have, but the enemy was merciless. I myself only escaped thanks to the deeds of one valiant mortal."

There is one crucial detail to understand about this situation: Curufin c_ouldn't stand_ the sons of Finarfin. And by extension, neither did whichever of his brothers were currently inclined to listen to him. He never did. He had decided this long ago, and nothing Finrod could have done had a serious chance to change this. Unaware of the proverbial vampires he had invited past the threshold of his house, one wonders if Felagund could have done anything that wouldn't have registered to the brothers as some sort of personal slight to themselves or their late father.

Even prompting them to pick something out of his treasury just prompts Curufin to a surgical, just barely deniable put-down of whatever craftsmanship wrought whichever one his cousin suggests – Less involved in their feud on a personal level and just liable to feuds in general, Darling might have taken him up on the offer if she had not known that Curufin would have kept his grudge at least for a long-year if she had accepted the gift, which wasn't really worth those particular bangles, though she personally found his dismissal of them subjectively tinted.

As for showing his cousins around the eponymous caves while trying to make light conversation about their shared appreciation of Naugrim architecture merely seems to poke the scab of the recently popped blister-bubble of the brothers' own palace-related dreams. The most he accomplished was to tell his enemies where the stronghold's strategic weak points might be.

Offering Celegorm to show him the woods and lakes around the fortress in case he felt like hunting just leads to him gruffly asserting that he can find his way on his own, and even his last attempt to find some common ground with Curufin by trying to appeal to their shared interests in languages backfires, perhaps more than anyone else before. Where Finrod, due to his genuine passion for the subject, held some sincere hope that contrasting their different viewpoints, methods and approaches might have lead to truly enlightening discussions. Though he tried not to, this once he really did care what his cousin (or half-cousin, if he so insisted) might think about this because it concerned on of his favorite topics. What could have been _their_ favorite topic, if things had been different?

But no, he seemed mulishly determined to derail the conversation into some assertion that he, Curufin, obviously knows to discuss languages more sagely than you, whoever 'you' happens to be, and though Finrod hat never once used his fathers' name Curufin eventually found some pretext to act like he had dragged him and his precious linguistic studies into it anyways, and his indignation on his namesake's behalf bore an impressive resemblance to the original's haughty gestures.

Against his better intentions, and though all his valiant efforts not to let it show, his thoughts kept circling back to the very memories he'd been trying to keep out of everything, recalling how even long, long ago, before everything somehow turned out the way it did, grandfather Finwe would always drop whatever he was doing whenever his prodigal firstborn's restless vagabond excursions took him and his equally truculent offspring anywhere _near_ the royal palace. They had kept to themselves, they had spoken in their own strange way, and yet Finrod and his brothers had at times been dragged along to see these supposed elusive cousins who very clearly did not want to see _them. _

What more did they want? More importantly – and he had the self-awareness to admit that this, all along, must have been what was _really_ bothering him about this deep down rather than any long-distant old stories – would it have been too much to ask for them to show just a morsel of compassion regarding the all-too-recent death of their shared uncle?

Fingolfin had been a good elf and a valiant king.

He died with just about as much honor as any single flesh-and-blood warrior could reasonably hope to attain. Couldn't they at least acknowledge that?

**Second Act, Tenth Scene**

One would think that after Curufin had gone through the trouble to procure himself a reasonably smart wife, that he would be wont to confer with her about his latest plans and schemes so he could benefit from what she knew.

But in truth, he often kept her in the dark precisely _because_ he thought her smart enough to hatch ideas and plots of her own and did not care for the interference.

"Husband of mine. Can you explain to me what the _Princess of Doriath_ is doing in the dungeons?"

"Now, hold on Darling, don't misunderstand-"

"What is there to misunderstand? What are you doing? Are you _out of your mind?_"

"No, no, Darling, think of her not as a prisoner, but as an esteemed guest. We are only holding her until she has the chance to change her mind. Give my brother some time to work his charms on her."

"Are you _serious_?"

"_Or_ wait until we have word from her father."

"And you honestly think he'll agree with you?"

"Not me, _Celegorm."_

"I see now. You actually _ARE _out of your mind."

"Pst, pst, Darling, not too loud… Listen to me before you draw any conclusions." Lounging on what was distinctly Orodreth's throne in the dead of night, he brazenly beckoned her with both hands and though she seemed none too impressed, Darling did indeed step closer.

"Come on, Darling. Have I ever led you astray? Have I ever been the sort of Elf to do anything without a reason?"

Darling was not amused.

"Look, we have to be smart about this. Morgoth could launch another attack any moment now, and we've _already_ been pushed back. It's not that we don't have enough manpower to do it, we drove them back all the way to Angbad when we first arrived. Okay, maybe there were more of us then, but now we've got all these Dwarves and Mortals running around here. Look, it's not just me saying it. Even dear old Russandol keeps going on about it! The numbers are really all in our favor, the only problem is that they all think they're too good to work with us.

All we need to do is fix that."

"...by throwing that stuck-up dark elf's prized daughter in a dungeon."

Darling resisted rolling her eyes, but just barely.

"No, by setting her up with Celegorm. Nargothrond's already as good as ours, and if you wait and see, Doriath will be ours, too. And if old Greycloak doesn't play ball with us, we'll just have to arrange a little accident for him."

"Wasn't he your grandfather's best friend or something?"

"He's not _my_ friend. Indeed the only ones he seems to be friendly with are those stuck-up little brats from the brood of our so-called uncle who ditched us all halfway across the sea! Maybe if we had his soldiers, we could've gotten to father in time, you know… If you ask me, it's clear as day what side he's_ really_ on."

Pleased with himself, Curufin noted that Darling already showed signs of thinking it over.

"What about Finrod and that mortal?"

"What about them? It's not my fault if our _dear cousin_", and he made that notion sound like the most farcical thing he ever heard, "Insists on getting himself killed on a fool's errand, Really, his lackeys ought to _thank us_ for talking them out of going after him. And if he's going to leave his fortress abandoned, someone's gonna have to take care of it. Why should it not be us? It's not like the usurpers haven't ever taken anything that is ours."

Darling was beginning to actually consider it.

"But suppose that, for whatever absurd reason that we could never have foreseen, one or both of them actually come back. What if they catch on to what we're doing. What_ then?_"

"There's _nothing_ they can do, Darling. And even if there was, they'd just have saved us all the trouble of getting the Silmaril. Even _if_ they somehow manage to get into Angbad and escape with their lives, I figure they'll be easy pickings once Morgoth is done with them. What's that mortal to us? And as for Finrod, I say he gets whatever he deserves for trying to take what#s ours. Maybe he should have minded his own business!

Listen Darling..." he whispered, bringing a hand to her cheek.

She didn't yet return the gesture, but neither did she back off.

"Soon I'll be king, and you shall be my queen! And our son will be heir to a royal line! And who else could it be? None of my brothers have any heirs, and once we're in power, the usurpers won't have much left to laugh about. He'll thank us for it.

We'll take back all that is our one thing after another. First the kingship, and then, father's jewels. And mark my words, when we finally get them back, I shall set one of them in a clasp for your sword arm, and have you wear it."

"What about your brothers?" she asked, but her face had already sharpened into a smirk, and she had joined him on the throne, sliding her knees past his.

"Oh Darling," he said, shaking his head in mock exasperation. "I cherish my brothers, I truly do – let it never be said that I don't. But you know, sometimes they are… how shall I put it delicately…

They're fools. They're all fools. You could talk them into just about anything as long as you know what buttons to push. Father used to do it _all the time. _I figured out how to do it by the time I could write my own name. Don't you worry about them. Besides, I was always the most skilled one out of any of us, and father always knew that! Are any of them jewel-smiths of my caliber? I think not. They can't really appreciate his work like I can. I dare say, if father were right here, with the jewels in his very hands, he would give one to me if I so much as asked!"

"You know, I could actually see that happen." Darling asserted with a high, snorting laughter that didn't even bother with the guise of dignity she might have hid behind in public.

"You see? I know you'd see my point. You've always been such a reasonable woman. I'm sure even that stubborn son of ours will soon come to see the light-"

He let go of her face only to reach past her back and draw her in for a kiss.

Darling had found that just as he had peerless vigour and energy in his intellectual pursuits, ambition and sheer ingenuity, he was also little more passionate in his desires than it was typical for one of their kind. The scholar in her honestly found it rather fascinating. If he got that from his father it would certainly explain all of his brothers.

When he at last had to part from her lips to draw breath, he spoke to her again:

"Speaking of Celebrimbor, how do you think he should like to have a sibling?"

"I'll think about that when I'm showing off my Silmaril-studded bangle in the halls of Menegroth.

What do you think? Perhaps at Celegorm's wedding? We can busy ourselves on old greycloak's throne once we've thrown him out of it."

They grinned at each other like thieves.

* * *

Don't worry friends, we WILL catch up on Caranthir's side of things, but this got long enough as it is.


	3. (Aside)

_"Fate does not mean Luck_  
_Fate means:_  
_lf the first brick is crooked, then how can the wall be straight?"_  
\- from an 80s TV show about an ancient Indian epic.  
Incidentally, it also involves a multigenerational royalty clusterfrick because the King remarries and his eldest swears an oath that did not account for changing circumstances, but the obviously bad-omensy kid who is technically the eldest-son-of-the-eldest-son is not the same person and only shows up a few generations down the line... and otherwise its totally different save for the epic battles and lengthy genealogies.

* * *

The Union of Maedhros was a mighty force indeed, the likes of which the world had not seen until that point, surpassed only by the great host that came out of the west as the First Age drew to a close.

But no chain is stronger than its weakest link.

The encampments were not even fully assembled, and the Union's architects only just barely beginning to tenuously believe in its promise, when the seeds of its ruin had already lodged themselves deep in their midst, laying hidden within like an infestation, waiting for the trap to spring. For millennia to come, the reasons for its downfall would ever be a matter of scholarly debate – Could it possibly have been avoided, or had the whole struggle against Morgoth been a fool's errand from the start? And if there had been even the tiniest chance to prevent its ruin, how might that have been accomplished? Where, along the long paths of time, and just how long ago had its fate finally been sealed?

To elucidate this matter it might now be helpful to describe how Caranthir the Dark and his chosen spouse had fared in Middle Earth.

**Act 1,5 – Scene 0,1**

If you had placed a bet as to which son of Feanor would be the most likely to inadvertently lead ill-meaning strangers into their midst, Caranthir would not have been anyone's first guess, presuming that said bet had taken place back in Valinor. This would have been because getting duped was, strictly speaking, a kind of social activity. Even by the standards of the famously particular Feanorians, Feanor's fourth son had always been considered the standoffish one. He loosely gravitated towards both the twins and the infamous duo that were the closest to him in age, but he was not quite so often found wandering around in pairs as the others, and famously considered the most lacking in social graces.

With a family as large as theirs, one would expect to find the charms and graces of two illustrious parents and four exalted grandparents shuffled every which way in every possible combination, and indeed, the results had ranged from Curufin, who was basically a marginally shorter, thinner and bonier version of his father, all the way to the twins, who mostly took after their mother's family aside from sharing their paternal grandmother'sslender build. Behold only the fine specimen that was Maedhros, who in appearance, bearing and character appeared to have blended the best of both grandfathers' qualities without a drop of his father's unyielding ego, but had all of his fierce determination, alongside Nerdanel's talent for constraining explosive look at Maglor, in whom all of both their parents' renowned creativity seemed to have come together, along with his father's long, dark hair and fair complexion combined with his mother's gentler, wiser personality. And then there was Celegorm, who was not called 'the fair' for nothing, and seemed to have scored the best of every part of the family, at least in terms of his looks. He had Nerdanel's strong, sturdy build, but topped off with his father's handsome facial features, fair complexion, and a height comparable, if not slightly superior to his, and if that weren't enough, he had somehow ended up with grandma Miriel's silver hair.

Are you imagining him? Perhaps riding a great horse, with various small braids blowing in the wind behind him as he speeds through the woods with a wild look of relish on his face?

Great!

Now picture the opposite. Not the exact opposite in every way, but the furthest thing that might be concocted from those same ingredients. And there you have Caranthir, his younger brother. No trace of grandma Miriel's silver hair, but a good serving of grandma Miriel's everything else. Many had heard that the late High King's second wife was her opposite in every way, and nodded thoughtfully and how this must have contributed to later events, but few who read of this in later texts would follow it to the logical conclusion – famously, the Lady Indis had been tall, fair, sociable and even-tempered, so it would follow through simple logic that Miriel was short, dark-eyed, reclusive and grouchy, for all that she might reportedly have sounded sweet enough when she would sing to herself while being immersed in her work – though she was said to be of lithe and slender stature, so it figured that Prince Caranthir's stronger build, like his ruddy, freckle-prone complexion, had come from his mother's family, though he missed out on the dramatic red hair and ended up instead with the dark strands that were most common among the Noldor.

Compared to a random selection of Men, he would still have registered as tall and good-looking, and perhaps the closest thing to ruggedly handsome you might have found on an Elf, but by the standards of Valinor, he would have been considered somewhat homely, and unlike a certain musically-inclined older brother of his, he thoroughly lacked the charming personality to make up for it.

Sandwiched in between the outgoing, comely and accomplished Celegorm as well as Curufin, who was perhaps the smartest and ever in their father's good graces due to his similar talents and inclinations, the crown prince's fourth son might have seemed perfectly in line with the stereotype of the unremarkable middle child (or perhaps those old superstitions about four being an unlucky number) – In any other, less exceptional family (even among the Noldor!) he would have been seen as quite talented, but as it was, he'd always found himself somewhat overshadowed.

He was strong, but not as much as Celegorm, and he was skilled with his hands, but not like Curufin was, and he had neither the former's good looks nor the latter's oratorical skills, being as plain as his mother but as moody as his father, without either the former's good sense to temper it or the latter's eloquence to hide it. In fact, he wasn't any good with words at all, particularly when he was angered, which is why he often kept quiet and seldom chose to bother with the hassle of expressing himself, keeping much of his brooding thoughts to himself.

But though he very much shared his father's sharp, melancholic-choleric temperament, he had inherited one more thing from his mother and grandmother that had passed by the rest of his family – a certain matter-of-factly, even frugal, practical outlook. He did not agonize over comparing himself to his father and brothers as many of them might have done in his place, but simply went about his life and aimed chiefly to keep himself busy, for he did not suffer sitting idle any better than the others did, if not considerably worse. He was most commonly seen in his work clothes, and often helped out his father in whatever workshop he had currently shut himself in whenever Curufin was unavailable, out riding, or when they were involved in some task that involved more than two people, but most often of all, he would be at work in his mother's workshop, for he had turned out to be a reasonably gifted stone mason – To begin with it seemed more reasonable to try keeping up with his mother, who, though a gifted expert, wasn't some unparalleled phenomenon the likes of which should never come again, but though he learn all that she had to teach him regarding the technique, he could never match her when it came to creative ideas. He wasn't the youngest or the oldest, he wasn't a good speaker like Curufin or a natural leader like Maedhros, nor did he have any special passion like Celegorm and Maglor, but he was busy, and he was still a prince, and he expected that his life would continue to consist of working at his family's artisanal pursuits for ever and ever, as he was clearly not suited to any of the palace business, and that didn't seem too bad too him, though he would at times feel a diffuse, yet bone-deep longing for something more without being able to articulate just what, though there were days where he could not liken it to anything other than burning.

All in all, he led his everyday life more as an artisans' son than as a prince, but even the plainest son of the House of Finwe could count on certain perks, such as being all but expected to marry into the nobility. One day, he met a girl who seemed in all ways acceptable to him, so he called her his Sweetie, and in time they were wed. When asked why he chose her, most of his answers would have sounded rather terse, beige and prosaic, in a sense, the exact opposite of Maglor's exaltation when he brought home his Dearest, but they seemed good enough reasons to him, and if his explications didn't get the job done, she did seem to understand the at times tempestuous passion contained in the touch of his rough craftsman's hands.

She had taken note of him sitting in a couch at the back of the ballroom on one of many innumerable gatherings and dances, and gone out of her way to inquire about him, showing open interest and concern. She was gentle, uncomplicated to live with, and he found her presence relaxing, especially when she would sing, though it was not more than a hobby.

Given His Highness infamous reputation for infamously and pedantry, some might have thought that anyone seeking to marry a Son of Feanor would be in for a harrowing ordeal, but they would have forgotten the tight bond he kept with his offspring, and his pride, that in many ways extended to them. Neither would any of them even have considered any choice that would grieve him, nor did he have so little faith in their discernment that he would meddle right out of the gate – He himself had chosen whichever wife he wanted as soon as he was able, and the two of them had agreed from the outset that they should raise their offspring to think for themselves, for he was, at least nominally, a great proponent of independence. Nerdanel held to this to the end, though her husband's efforts in that regard were sabotaged by his own insistent forcefulness. If if came down to it, his sons would all have held to him in loyalty, or failing that, at last yielded to his stronger will, the self-same one that he confidently expected to work on any spouse his sons could drag in.

The only outright restriction he laid on them beforehand with regards to their spouses was that they had to be of Noldorin lineage, because, 'As the First House, we at least must represent our people' (he once said, casting a stinky side-eye at his half-brother Finarfin), which left his sons with all of Tirion and over a third of Valinor's elf population to choose from and as such, was not a restriction that they were likely to chafe against – some, like Curufin, rather shared their father's preconceptions (he indeed would never have looked twice at any suitor who couldn't hold her own in the workshop any more than he would think it sensible to court some fish-maiden who couldn't breathe the same air), and to the rest, Nerdanel had implied through the grapevine that she would negotiate their father if any of them should be inclined to circumvent his directive.

But insofar as they could even find the time and dedication for courtship amid their various pursuits, none of them should ever take her up on that offer during all their time in Aman.

So there was not, in fact, any sort of drama or scrutinous vetting when Caranthir brought home a perfectly non-objectionable noblewoman – things had been a bit more daunting for Maglor's wife (more because he was the first to bring one than because of her common birth), but once she had been accepted, who might see any fault with Sweetie?

She didn't object to speaking to his father's liking or wearing the emblems of their clan, but was not much interested in the affairs of government or even the ruling house's political quarrels. No one would tell her outright not to greet the descendants of Indis with sweet, friendly gestures, so she never really stopped, though she would draw back and keep out of arguments when they happened – should they involve her husband, which wasn't too seldom, she would instead stick to his side. She didn't ask much of him, was content with what he gave her, and busied herself with typical noble pastimes when he was away, as one presumed she once did at home. Given that she was of Noldorin nobility, some of those pastimes were even useful around the workshop.

Though she was an enthusiastic aunt in regards to Celebrimbor, she had never desired children, and neither had Caranthir; He didn't think that he would have the patience for it, and she was daunted by the responsibility, which left them all the more time to enjoy their life together as well as the works of their hands, and they were about as content together as one could get with a man of Feanor's bloodline involved.

And then came the rebellion. His father had not needed more than the least fraction of his skill to whip the harshest of his sons into a frenzy. Caranthir should follow him without question, departed from Tirion without even looking back, swore the oath in a heartbeat, and all the while, his Sweetie had followed him, because she had refused to part from him.

She had at times looked after Celebrimbor when his parents and uncles were away to fight the forces of Morgoth, but even from the periphery, it could not be said that she remotely enjoyed the conflict, and the first deaths of either friend or foe long filled her with dread, though it shouldn't be said that she didn't make a valiant effort to stay strong, and then, at last, Caranthir should grant her what his then long-deceased father had promised them both: The rich lands of Thargelion.

Maedhros had quite unsubtly stuffed them here to avoid quarrels with their cousins, seeing that he'd already had to chastise his brother for mucking up more than one diplomatic meeting with his big mouth, but it was still theirs: Wide, green riverside land for them to run through to their heart's content.

Sweetie actually succumbed to the temptation to dance through the wetlands in a joyful flurry of excitement, and then lay back in the long reeds once she had tired herself out, and though Caranthir was not one to be swayed by such exuberance, he had faintly returned her exhausted smile then. In part it must have been the relief of the temporary peace and the knowledge that Angbad was now far-off surrounded for the time being.

But since this was now his land, he might as well set about governing it properly, and begin by raising up buildings of stone, starting with the necessary fortifications to hold out against the enemy – He makes sure to inspect the quarries himself. Got to keep busy.

**Act 1,5 – Scene 0,2**

When the Younger Peoples first came out of the woodworks, Caranthirwouldn't have dreamed of a time when he and his wife enjoy their company, or that he would even find himself developing any sort of affinity to the likes of them, or go so far as to find them suited to his own gruff nature - let alone that his family's pursuits should one day meet her undoing because he had trusted one too many – First come the Dwarves. When he came across these stout, hairy creatures, and began to understand that they were some sort of speaking peoples, he couldn't have hidden what he thought about their looks even if he had seen reason too.

He wasn't aware of any irony either. On a good day, he could just barely manage to be minimally civil with whatever crossing bands of Sindar and Avari he'd have to contend with.

A diplomat he is not, and never would have been if he had lived another thousand years (He would not.)

But he came here to rule, and rule he they were to build wide kingdoms here, he figured that they would have to get their hands on resources. Certainly, what they had brought with them across the sea in jewels and artifacts was more valuable than anything else in this land, but insofar as he knows, you can't build a kingdom entirely out of trinkets. You can't eat them, not even the kind that father used to make – the fraction of his father's followers that he'd brought with him are limited in number, and best utilized in guarding the borders or putting their craft and knowledge to immediate use – whatever the locals have, he thinks, should be better than nothing, no matter what they look like or what he may think of them, or they of him, and surely even they can't be too keen on winding up as thralls of the enemy, so there should be those among them who wouldn't mind parting with a little bit of tax or tribute in exchange for the protection of his forces – perhaps they'll have something to barter? They'll surely appreciate the orc-free roads.

In any case, they would need to build roads and fortresses, perhaps toll-booths, walls and dwellings for their own people and whoever wants in, for a price, or perhaps in exchange for their fealty – The roads don't maintain themselves.

He finds out about one of the first names given to his Domain when he overhears a pair of traveling Sindar talking among themselves when they thought him to be out of earshot, something something about having to cross the lands of 'That greedy Kinslayer'. They clearly forgot about 'brash' and 'loudmouth'. Greedy Kinslayer it is then, as long as they pay up – they don't have to like him, and he doesn't have to like them, their pay is just as good if they don't like him.

He doesn't have to like the Naugrim either, though he almost prefers them to anyone who holds all that much fealty to Menegroth. Perfectly good, that pay of theirs. Caranthir soon finds that they feel exactly the same. Eventually, he appreciates it, though it doesn't precisely make him polite – In time, though, he finds himself maybe not changing, but certainly amending what he thinks. Did they always have ordered realms of their own, or was that recent? Currency? Trade routes? Their own kind of smith-craft? It's not half bad, not bad at all. He would know, as surely as he was his father's son. And they're interested in learning what it is their new neighbors have to offer.

Curufin would have a field day. In fact, he does have a field day, once Caranthir invites him: "I can't understand even a single word of what they're saying to each other when they think we're out of earshot. Their language is unlike anything I've ever heard in my life… utterly fascinating! If only our father were here, he would weep for joy."

Before the decade is done, he's packed up with his wife and son to go see their cities, leaving Celegorm alone to hold down the fort.

Caranthir doesn't go quite as far as to come to the Naugrim's lands, he's not that interested in the end, but even so he's got all his hands full organizing the novel opportunities for trade. If they want to sell their things? Fine. If they want goods from Beleriand? Sure, why not. Though anyone wanting to get involved with this lucrative new opportunity better get over themselves and get ready to treat with the domain of That Greedy Loudmouth Kinslayer after all.

(To loyal followers, it is known only as 'Caranthir's Land' - if they wanted to live somewhere more scenic-sounding, they really should have gone to bother Maglor instead. )

And though all this began in part through pure blind luck, in a territory he had taken before there had been any trade routes or even any other speaking peoples to trade with, before long, Caranthir finds that he had learned something about himself, though it was perhaps only a reiteration of something he'd known all along: That he is his father's son. He recalls all those days in Aman, of which the memory now seems distant, before the change from night to day, beneath the drenching radiance of endless summer which he had not thought of in a long time, all the time father had spent inventing things that the Eldar had scarcely needed in their earthly paradise, and yet, never satisfied… In that distant land of plenty where he was born, there had never been any need for anything like large-scale commerce. Everyone could easily make whatever they wanted, and had little reason not to share it freely, except, of course, for the sort of things that could only be made once…

But here in Middle Earth, many things were scarce, and had to be managed carefully. And Caranthir found that he was very good at this whole 'trade' business – He might not have been the sort of visionary creator that his parents had been, but he was surely their son. He might not be ingenious like Curufin, but he was smart all the same – it might have been a dry, prosaic, logistic sort of intelligence suited to order and detail rather than the spotting of patterns, but he found that he possessed it in spades.

Thargelion soon turns out to be one of the most lucrative realms in East Beleriand. It's not Nargothrond and certainly no Menegroth, but it's most certainly on the map, and as its lord, Caranthir finds himself more fabulously wealthy than any of his brothers with their barren marches and indeed many other rulers in these lands. Before that day, he'd never had the most of anything. It strikes him that he has finally found it – something all of his own, unique among all his many brothers and cousins...and he finds, for now, that Middle Earth agrees with him.

Potential new vassals knock on his doors to enter his service and he is, perhaps for the first time, in a position to help his brothers out. When Maglor is in need of additional fortifications along the river, he had them paid for and built my his own architects, and when Celegorm and Curufin come over for a hunting trip, he receives them with all manner of luxuries at his lavish abode, which he had built on the shores of lake Hevelorn. It is nearly surrounded by mountains and as such appeals to the love of Hidden Places that seems nigh-universal to Elf-kind, but when he looks at the murky dark recesses of the deep, dark lake itself, the Lord of Thargelion couldn't help but feel a certain affinity to it.

Here he had built a gleaming palace of white Marble, here he keeps his books and ledgers, and here he had a wide Balcony that opens out to the lake itself, where he often comes to brood on his own, and admits no one but his Sweetie, who had never asked much of his and now reaps all his rewards.

She alone knows about the statues he has hewn of his parents, facing the lake also: His his mother who never once died, but remains just as distant to him, though she was the one who once taught him to work stone, his father, who burnt to ashes, depicted proud and tall for he could never picture him otherwise, who had never seen this place and never would, for all that Caranthir wondered what he might think of him if he could see what he had made of himself. Much had been lost along the way, but if the point of their departure was to choose rule in hell over servitude in heaven, then Caranthir and his wife could surely claim to have archived it.

Certainly there was always talk that the Lord of the Lake had some unsavory past – that he was a kinslayer, or worse, damned man who had forsworn his own soul long, long ago and carried a curse that was due to make all his wealth crumble in due time, but that didn't dim the gleam of the wealth he had right now – indeed, in later days, it should become a long-standing legend among the local Men, and endure longer than most of the land itself, though much distorted and mixed with other tales, so that the insatiable seeker of knowledge and his son the wealthy ruler of a drowned land became one and the same, and his relationship with the Dark One looking to pervert his soul was much different, as no doubt the Dark One himself would have it told – no matter what happened, the devil should maintain that the devil was there. Some versions of the tale at least retained that the Lord of the sunken lands had a scholar for a father, but few remembered how much further those lands had once extended, or that the one who ruled the later coast was just one of many – Later storytellers would merely hear that his stronghold had been by the water, and think that it was always by the sea rather than remember some long forgotten lake, but one detail that should be preserved through the ages in song and play was that the ruler of the coast had a much gentler, sweeter lover, who was in some fashion called after a Pearl.

That seemed natural enough for a ruler by the sea, but at the height of Caranthir's rule, Thargelion, or Forlindon as its crumbled remains should later be known,was nowhere near the ocean, or any other place where you might find pearls. But the trade routes he controlled stretched so far that he had ample access to them regardless, as many as he should want – and he sets them in in clips and hairpins, and then puts those on his Sweetie, one day, when he had been resting his head in her lap on the opulentdark marble balcony overlooking what he thinks of as his lake.

But because she takes to wearing those same pearl-studded clips almost all the time from that day onward, and because the only still water far and wide is the lake, someone – maybe the retainers, but most likely the travelers, but most definitely not her notoriously grumpy lord husband, or so he would have you think, take to referring to her by something that might mean, or metaphorically imply, 'Freshwater Pearl'. He thinks so. They can make him speak Sindarin, but they can't make him do it he thinks that Curufin would have commented on something by now, if he'd gotten it wrong. Sometimes it's just 'Pearl-Lady', other times, in ceremonial adress, it is as grandiose as 'Guarded Pearl of Hevelorn', as in, the most precious treasure that the wealthy elf-lord had kept in his palace. The tales obviously got wilder the further they traveled from the borders of Beleriand, perhaps getting mixed up with stories from the other realms along the way.

Perhaps it's simply that his realm was the furthest to the east and hence the closest to the receptacles of later living memory – still. Not bad for the loud-mouthedmiddle child who was put there so he wouldn't quarrel with his cousins.

**Act 1,5 – Scene 0,3**

Speaking of middle children: During the years of the long peace, Curufin and Celegorm indeed visited often enough for Caranthir's palace to acquire a light patina of fond memories for the three brothers (there had still been several instances where some rowdy disagreements had seen at least one of them shoved into the lake), though it wasn't too rare for him to receive Amras or Maglor either, and the few times that all of them had been gathered had mostly taken place here, not that they could ever really be complete again, not after what happened at Losgar… Centuries after their father's ashes had been scattered upon the wind, they still dared not to speak of it.

But even so, there had few times when they had actually managed to assemble for a holiday and things had gotten outright lively, especially when Maglor and Curufin had brought their wives, and despite himself, Caranthir took great pleasure in gifting his young nephew with rare supplies for his craft. When they departed, Celebrimbor had been considered too young to take part in any fighting or swear any oaths, but during the years of peace, he was swiftly becoming his own man in looks and speech. Aunt Sweetie had remarked upon it, as did his uncle Maglor, but as it would turn out, his parents should be the last to notice.

Caranthir was the most surprised of all to find himself enjoying such gatherings which he had often disliked in his youth, though Sweetie was glad about that – Once they brought it up to Maglor, and he'd mused about how the passage of time was more keenly felt here in middle earth, though Caranthir had pointedly resented the implication that they were acting like silly old people. He concurred rather with Maglor's missus, who on that day supposed that it was perhaps only natural that they should miss each other now that they were much more scattered and all had lives of their own, given that they had lived in such close proximity for all those centuries back in Valinor.

Maedhros, on one of the rare occasions that he had been present, said something poignant in response, which sucked out all the levity from the moment: "I think I much better understand grandfather Finwe now, and why he would so often seek to have us all gathered, though it seldom went well..."

And while his brash middle brothers should hardly have been grieved on account of any missed chanced with their cousins, everybody present was surprised to see such a remark coming from the eldest who had always seemed so intent to make them understand what he now claimed to be only just grasping.

"Huh?" exclaimed Celegorm, ever quick to respond to anything: "Weren't you the one who was always insisted that we should go and play along?"

"That was but for the sake of our duties at court, as princes. But all these times, we weren't merely summoned by our king, but also by our grandfather. We were still ignorant of hardship then, so of course, so I wonder if we could truly have understood… but if we had known that he was going to be slain, that any of this was going to happen, or that we would go on to lose so many of our number-"

Curufin interrupted him in an accusatory voice that lacked much of his usual polish: "No. Don't you dare tell me that you regret following father!" For the first time in a long time, many of the people present were reminded that he was the second youngest, for all that his early marriage, steep accomplishment and endeavors at distinguished speech had served him well in his efforts to purge all memory of that.

But it was perhaps because of that brief raw moment that Maedhros didn't miss a beat:

"_Never"_, he spoke, and his voice was absolute. "There would be no point in that. I just wish that we could all have come together one last time is all."

"Well, you can think what you like, big brother, I certainly don't miss sitting with the usurpers..." grumbled Caranthir, crossing his strong, bejewelled arms as he looked out over the veranda of his palace. "But I can't say that I don't wish we could have had another great feast with father. If only mother had come with us to Formenos… We could have sat together once more before we departed..."

At this point, none of them had seen Nerdanel in centuries, and the mention of her struck longing in all of their hearts, even if some were more reluctant to show it than others, 'some' meaning Curufin: "Well! She didn't! That was nobody's choice but her own!"

While none of the seven brothers had been too happy about their parent's split, it was no secret that Curufin in particular had rather resented her for it, in ways that his brothers had not, and for the most part they fell silent whenever he spoke sharply of her choice.

But he was right about one thing: Just from the glance that was exchanged between Maedhros and her husband, Dearest could tell that they must be thinking the same as her – that with the unrest and hostility in those final days would never have allowed for any sort of friendly parting celebration. Should they have raised their glasses before or right after the kinslaying, their blades still dripping with blood? Such a thought could only have been borne of hindsight, melded with a refusal to question certain choices that they simply could not effort to look back at.

Before long, Celegorm's irritation with the slight discomfort tugging at the corners of his soul led him to steer the conversation into different waters, and purposed to go prepare their dinner since the servants must most certainly have been done preparing the cooking fires and skinning their kills from this morning's hunt – He had insistently directed them explicitly not to throw away the hides, claiming that he would want them for his use even if he had all the world's wealth, and it was a similar philosophy that had inclined him to do his own cooking as it was the custom for men of the Noldor, deigning that it was his turn to impress his brothers with his culinary craft given that their prey had come from Caranthir's estates and their spears, knives and arrows from Curufin's workshop.

Not long after he was gone, the brothers all scattered to and engrossed in their own conversations whilst they were at least nominally supposed to be moving to the dining hall, they would have heard a string of their mother's favorite songs coming from where the stilt-borne ends of the veranda ended right above the lake. With his boots discarded next to him, his lyre in his hands and his feet in the water, he played and played until the feast was ready. His wife knew better than to disturb him and went to fetch Cerebrimbor and his mother, who at the time were picking out their gifts in the treasury.

All the while, Amras had stood somewhat apart from the crowd of his brothers, his face betraying little of what he thought, but surely not much resembling great agreement, and remaining at the lakeside in silence. When all was ready, Sweetie went fetch him, and only then did he reveal to her part of his mind:

"I'm not sure, if I'd want to see mother and father again. Maybe if everything were to go back to the way it used to be, long ago… But even if I look back, I just see all the reasons why things ended up like this..."

He had, for the most part, gone his own ways during the years of peace, roaming the woods of his own territory and seldom involving himself with the war efforts or the purposes of his brothers unless he was called upon, though the contacts he would forge with the local Nandor of Estolad would eventually prove crucial once the brothers fell on harder times – He kept to himself, and many who crossed his path returned the favor, as if they could feel that he bore not only the shadow of the unspeakable, but the weight of the silence they had all agreed to maintain about it, not that this agreement would ever have involved an actual discussion in which he was consulted.

But Sweetie, of all people, seemed undaunted by the ominous weight he carried, or perhaps she was simply trying not to think about it in her own, equally stubborn way, and, when she saw him, spoke to him just as casually as she had in Tirion: "Come on in dear! Brother Celegorm told me that you were the one who caught that huge boar? That sounds really impressive, I don't think I would be brave enough..." She did not really respond to his words, but neither did she hesitate to grab him by the arm, flat out refusing to be disturbed. "We bought ample fruits and delicacies, there are so many nice ones in season, and the sweetness will go so well with the roast meat, don't you think?"

She - didn't get much conversation out of him, but that never seemed to deter her, and thus did the lady of the house lead him to her banquet, where the great stone table laid out with all the splendor of a baroque still-life, its dark, shining surface of course inlaid with a mosaic of an eight-pointed star, and so the brothers feasted, and came to such borrowed bliss as it would be afforded to accursed sinners in a dark, marred world, overripe, sourish sweetness right about to burst.

But for the most part, the ruling pair of Thargelion had dwelt by themselves, and the Lord seldom had other visitors for matters outside of business or organizing the household – this, he did with his father's meticulousness, and left the purely representative ceremonials and the labors of being seen to Sweetie, insofar as they bothered with such things at all. Sweetie had her fun with it, and somehow always seemed to remember which of their non-Noldorin subjects were related to each other, and which were at odds, which was no small feat considering how quick those Men went through their generations.

**Act 1,5 – Scene 0,4**

Speaking of Men - one of the most significant acquaintances which Caranthir would make during that time would be someone who would, in the end, not agree to become his vassal and move on to metaphorically greener pastures, though they should part in friendship and remain as such ever afterwards (Sweetie made sure to the send the occasional gift basket in later days) -

Caranthir did recall what his father had said about the Aftercomers, or rather, what he'd gathered from what the colleague of a friend claimed to have overheard in a conservation between a pair of Maiar, but when he actually saw them, they seemed nothing like what they had been led to expect.

Now, Caranthir had been all for his father's words at the time – He sure wasn't going to let any nebulous future chosen ones usurp their place in the world, or supplant what was there with their vaguely-defined special gifts and powers granted to them as the creator's supposed favorites.

But all of that led him to expect something rather more like the Maiar and Valar themselves, a mighty foe to fight and defy, something better-harders-faster-stronger yet pliable to the will of the Valar, not such fragile, brittle creatures that could hardly last seven decades. There was nothing at all to fear from them- and yet, they seemed to be the Noldor's equals in valor and tenacity, though they were so much more breakable, and knew so much less about where death would take them.

Bold and headstrong they were, and the only feeling that Caranthir could have had towards them when he met Haleth and her people was respect andadmiration.

When he indeed discussed the matter with his brothers, Celegorm and Curufin had not be too impressed and didn't quite get what the fuss was about (though this did little to dim Curufin's enthusiasm for the Naugrim), but Maglor and Maedhros had bitterly mused that the rumors to the contrary must have come from the enemy himself – the thought that he once walked about their city in their very midst seemed distant and bizarre now.

Caranthir would not live to appreciate the irony when the servants of the enemy convinced the Men of the self-same thing, leading them to distrust the Eldar and talking some of the foremost of them into raiding Valinor until their shining cities joined Beleriand on the bottom of the sea – Only the One and Morgoth himself know what he told his servants among Maiar, probably something about how they really ought to take of the spoils of the Children of Illuvatar and yet fear both their kindreds alike.

But there was one thing he did know, a truth held as self-evident from the cradle: His family was something of an anomaly, brought about by some random glitch in the world's allotted order the likes of which should never come again.

Their father had spent so much time assuring them that they were special that the one thought he never wanted to have could be made out clear and crisp from the outline of its negative – even at a young age, they'd traveled all around Aman and never seen anyone quite like themselves, and if anyone ever complained about his many rowdy boys, he would say it was because the others just couldn't handle them. They surely didn't understand, he said, they were ill-meaning and jealous, if not plotting something… and perhaps Celegorm or Curufin had been able to believe that, seeing as they'd learned so early so make their anomaly so very, very useful – and Caranthir had found his ways, too, in the end, but since it had taken him a bit longer, he saw it all in a slightly different light.

In many ways, he understood that himself and his family had never been exactly typical for elves – not even like other elves of unusual prowess, like Finrod or Galadriel – and little, indeed, had Caranthir even found in common with them, and he did not love them for it – the well-bred, beautiful, talented scions of Finarfin who had somehow managed to be special without ever being too much. But there was a reason for them to be like that, all the Vanyarin knack for mind-speech and those Telerin tricks for talking to everything trees and rivers coming together, possibly even for some greater purpose and design. Himself and his brothers though? Farts of the universe.

And even if they should have been allowed for some particular higher purpose, such as to yield the jewels obediently when the time came, well, their father had refused that to the last, and Caranthir himself quite agreed with him there.

But given that the like of them had never existed – and would never exist again, not unless another man like their grandfather were found, and another consigned to their grandmother's fate – well, given all that, was it so strange that they should find more in common with these curious Men and dwarves than they ever had with some of their own so-called cousins?

With their endless vigorous striving and their way of burning bright and fading fast, the Aftercomers seemed like their natural allies, and when he heard from the chieftains of the Edain that they didn't much trust these other bands from the east, well, he didn't think that there would be even as much to that as to the distrust that other elven kindreds held for the factions led by himself and his brothers.

He should be proven half right – the bunch that had pledged themselves to Maedhros proved to be of excellent character. The ones who followed him, though… well, in later ages scholars would count their corruption as one of the enemy's greatest victories, for he managed to drive a lasting rift through the kindreds of Men and at the same time estrange them all from the firstborn, widening the simple distrust borne of fear of the unknown into a gulf of bitterness that would continue to plague Mankind when all this land was drowned and all its wars forgotten, but those who knew his designs would hold it unlikely that the Dark Lord had followed some complex strategy here to which the hosts of the Noldor were but collateral damage – By the looks of it, he simply couldn't stand to see any good thing untainted.

So what should he have done then, the ruler of the distant past fief briefly known as Thargelion? Should he have held fast to his initial haughty preconceptions and never looked for allies?

**Act 1,5 – Scene 0,5**

Even when they are forced to flee, Sweetie and Caranthir still count themselves well-off – They've had long to prepare, and more than enough fallback points and secondary fortifications waiting for them. The Lord cursed coarsely when he realized that he would most likely be unable to hold his favored abode, and took the opportunity to knock over some priceless vase that he would be unable to bring, but he had remembered correctly which one he put the weapons in, and has more than enough loyal servants to haul much of his belongings out of the way, at least the ones that can be carried. Anyone who chickens out or complains is quickly bribed with some baubles.

Gold means nothing to the orcs, but men and dwarves are a different manner – Even Avari and Sindar (to a lesser extent) might be won over, if you offered something fancy enough that they couldn't usually find this side of the sea, though he was loath to part with too many such pieces.

The serpents will have his walls of marble, and that gripes him more than its fair share, but he shall not leave them anything that isn't attached to the walls.

Last but not least, he swings his wife onto his horse, jumps on behind her, and bids the animal to get going. Sweetie sticks as close to him as she can, seeking the refuge of his back from behind when he can't spare his arms – but at the time, he thinks that he is leaving but for a little while before he can muster a counterattack, and largely fuming about what the wretched orcs might to with his prized lakeside mansion, and if he shall ever get the stink out.

It doesn't quite turn out that way.

Along with all his many diverse followers, he finds himself pushed as far back as Amon Ereb.

Back then, it was just another name on the map that held no special significance – he'd inspected it a handful of times, but it was no different from his other holdings – there are no particular meanings or associations yet that would be connected to the name. Sure, he recalls that time Amras told him about some Nadorin king who met his end somewhere there around the time of the Darkening, but what's yet another dark omen? Their father had been shrugging those off since birth, and little would he have accomplished if he hadn't. Amras had said nothing at that, and simply gazed down the sides of the aptly ominous 'Lonely Hill' - but whatever it had once been, it was now a perfectly fine fortress that the lakeside trade-prince had duly fortified during the fat years, which left him now with plenty of room to park his coffers, his soldiers, and his little brother as soon as he could muster an expedition to his last known position, where he was indeed besieged, but hidden well enough that Caranthir and his forces first supposed that they had come to the wrong place. Amras appeared to have learned quite a few tricks from his Nandorin neighbors when it came to disguises, even if they weren't known having many warriors. Even so, his woods were perhaps easy to hide in, but hard to guard from concentrated assaults, and so, he agreed to come to Amon Ereb as well with his company.

Sweetie came down the hill to greet them as soon as they came within range of its archers.

"Caranthir!"

Now, he loved her, but that didn't mean that he understood why she had to get so excited – their company had not even seen battle, not had they been away for longer than expected. Gruff-faced, but not altogether displeased, he came down from his horse and suffered himself to be hugged like some oversized fluffy children's toy. Soon enough, she let go when she spotted his younger brother's distinctive shock of red hair.

"Oh, Amras. It's good to see you!"

"...Lady." he merely replied in quiet acknowledgment. Then, his gaze turned to the fortress up ahead: "So this is where we'll be hiding out."

"For now."

"...the lonely hill..." Amras repeated, as if pondering the foreboding name. "...so what do you mean to do now, brother?"

"First, we'll wait and see if we get word from Maedhros and the others." Caranthir decided. "And if there's any more orcs..." He let his fist slap into his open palm.

"I see. Then let me and my people do the scouting and keep watch."

"You've gotten quite good at that, haven't you?" Sweetie observed with a perhaps undue smile which must nonetheless be a boon to her followers.

Amras shrugged. "It's something to do."

**Act 2,5 – Scene 0,6**

But looking at the bigger picture, one might also make the case that the treason of Ulfang was merely the straw that broke the camel's back, and look elsewhere indeed to dissect the anatomy of the mishaps that had made the Union into a house of cards that could easily be snapped by just a simple knife in the back.

But wherever the weakest link might be found, his name probably starts with a 'C', and it was most definitely one of the middle children.

"Celebrimbor. Apologize, right now!"

"Surely you must understand that this is far past matters of propriety, Mother!"

That might have been the understatement of the century. Standing just outside the doors of Nargothrond, Celebrimbor found that his strongest emotion in that moment was disbelief – How could his mother be so incensed about his tone, when she had stood by cold-blooded, unmoved, and fully knowing his own father had-

He could scarcely bear to think of it without feeling the disgust well up like bile.

There was no detail of the whole affair that did not fill him with more revulsion than he could handle at this moment.

"He… he died. They say he was torn apart by a werewolf. He was our cousin."

"Half-cousin, at best. Once removed, in your case."

The younger elf was so appalled that he barely even managed to choke out his next words: "He took us in when we had nowhere to go even thoug we've never given him reason to trust us… And you- You...-"

"We helped him fight the bloody orcs for years!" spat the older smith. "And how did he thank us? By going off with this mortal for the explicit purpose of getting him what's ours and then giving it to our enemies. What a fine show of being on our side, really! He had his oath, and we have ours..."

That proved to be the breaking point. Cerebrimbor, who before now had struggled more and more to find the words with every casual barbarity that had come from his father's mouth, now snapped back with piercing, fiery eyes:

"Don't you dare compare yourself to King Finrod. He's a better man than you ever were. He was faithful. He stood by his promise of friendship even knowing that it might cost him anything. You've never cared for anything other than your selfish greed and pride, and for such a reason… for such a reason as that… There's no lines you wouldn't cross in order to get what you want, are there?"

"Finrod had lines."Darling cut in, her tone no less scathing. "And as you have rightly pointed out, he's dead now. Is that what you want to be, dead? 'Cause if you don't grow out of your admiration for martyrs sometime soon, it will have a bad end with you. Call it maternal foresight."

"Still better than being a kinslayer. " And it was not that the accusation was false, or that Curufin and his wife were in any way ashamed of their deed, but the clear line that he drew between us and them. "Oh would that I had been old enough to hold a sword! Would that I had turned on you back then, like Galadriel did! Would that anyone had stopped you, before you doomed us all!"

"So thats how it is then?" Curufin spoke, his voice dripping with contempt. "Look at this, Darling, your son seems to think he's too good for us."

Darling sighed, though it wasn't clear at whom; Perhaps she just liked to hold herself above the fray, even as this pair of mirrored blazes seemed so all-too determined to surge up all around her.

"Look. Son. I get that you're... upset about what happened to Finrod. But it was us, or him. We can't afford to worry about Finrod, we've got to worry about ourselves! Your father was trying to secure you a throne. You ought to be grateful."

"This is madness! You're all mad! I will have no part of this… madness! For your own sakes, you should leave before the guards come out to ask why you're not gone yet. "

"Curufinwe Telperinquar." Darling stressed, perhaps snapping back to Quenya in a bid to call back the day where they both towered over him.

"Don't call me that! Not ANY of that!"

"That's no way to talk to your mother."

"I don't have a mother. Nor a father, it seems, just some murderous son of a Balrogg-!" Celebrimbor hadn't actually thought that insult through. It was the first thing that came to his mind. He just wanted to say something, anything, that might break through that veneer of sneering superiority.

He got his wish.

"You ungrateful little twerp you-"

Only Darling's gloved hand on the front of his tunic held him back. Before her husband's ire could redirect itself towards her, she spoke, cold and unfazed:

"Stop it. You're dealing with a brat. It's not worth it. He'll come to his senses eventually. Let's just go, before Orodreth decides to have us chased. He'll come crying back to us soon enough once he feels like it."

**Act 2,5 – Scene 0,7**

Darling had not liked Nargothrond. She certainly didn't like begging to get by in someone else's fortress, not after having her own. But as she was poking around in a slab of meat she had been left to watch as it hung over their makeshift camp's humble campfire, she nonetheless began to think that maybe it had not been all that bad. Sure they weren't ruling it, but didn't they have that Finrod firmly enough in their pocket?

She didn't care enough for Finrod to be all too sorry about what happened to him, but neither could she say that she cared enough for her husband's little family feud so sit out in the cold for its sake. She had little to fear from it, but she preferred being comfortable, and though she had admired her in-laws, they were now either long gone, or faraway. And she had thought that she was going to be a crown prince's son, or lady of her own domain. Last that she heard of, her husband had promised to make her a queen – never mind that. She could've had better fare at her parent's suite on the palace grounds in Tirion, and better use for her time, if, indeed, there was still a palace there right now, and any kings to reign there – who would it even be? Findis? Finarfin? Damned if she knew, or cared perhaps the Valar had just pulled that place flat for all the supposed treason; It was nothing to her now. She poked the meat yet again, trying to see if it was beginning to look remotely done.

Then, she heard a rustle in the bushes.

"What on Arda happened to you two?"

"What happened, " growled Celegorm, "Is that we're gonna kill that mortal."

"There'll be no point in that." croaked Curufin from beside him, leaning from his larger frame, his voice cold and contemptious where his brother's was ferocious: "If you so much as blink, he'll die all by himself. Thingol is the one who sent him – it's him who we've got to kill." He tried his best to speak decisively, but his voice failed him in places, and at the end, he had to pause for a couple of coughs, bringing his hand to the evident marks on his neck – the same hands that had been laden with rings when he departed, but was now distinctly bare and bruised.

Darling note that he was missing just about everything but the clothes on his back, including that prized dwarf-made knife of his, and that there was only a single horse trailing behind the beaten-looking pair.

When his wife and brother turned toward him, the latter getting up from her place to reach out her hand, Curufin decidedly rebuffed them both.

"Back off. I'll live."

Seeing that that pride of his was well intact, Darling had to will herself to restrain her frustration, but it was but a matchstick next to Celegorm's. Once he had duly deposited his brother by the campfire, he threw both his arms up in the air.

"That thrice-accursed coward of Menegroth! He'll be sorry if I ever get my hands on him! Morgoth take him, and the everlasting Darkness!"

"You're saying that very casually these days," she observed dryly, biting into a stale piece of bread that she'd brought out from their meager stores, drawing her legs closer to herself. "If you invoke them often enough, they might actually come for us."

**Act 2,5 – Scene 0,8**

"If I can't dissuade you from going, then I ask at the very least that you refrain from serving the half-orcs who killed by uncle. If you must go, join yourselves to the House of Fingolfin, and to them only- "

Orodreth found his speech to the company of volunteers suddenly interrupted when the great hidden doors were thrown open once again, revealing what appeared to be one more company

"Celebrimbor? What are you doing here?"

"Listening to your speech, sire. Please continue."

"You're departing for the battle?"

To Celebrimbor's great relief, he actually sounded surprised about that – Yet he felt compelled to quench even the faintest appearance of suspicion:

"Your Majesty. I assure you that neither I nor those who follow me have any desire to have any more dealings with my father. As you said, I will serve the High King, and the High King only. Or Lord Turgon, if I can manage it."

"Turgon?"

"The word is that he has a secret stronghold where no one can leave or enter. If I live through the coming battle, I think I should like living in a place like that. I wonder how many were born there during the years of the peace, how many would not recognize me at all… A place where nobody knows my face or the faithless deeds of my father seems like a mercy to me now… I'm done being the son of Curufin, or the grandson of Feanor. I desire nothing more than to forget all this world with its hopeless strife. I considered just venturing into the woods, but Turgon's stronghold would likely have the better forges. I can do more there, and put my live and work towards worthy ends. Thank you, sire for all you have done for me."

"If that is your purpose, then you may go forth. From what I remember, Turgon is a good man. He was a close friend of uncle Finrod. He would count himself fortunate to have you in his ranks, cousin… "

**Act 2,5 – Scene 0,9**

"What do you care about any reward from the Valar? We don't bow to them anymore, in case you've forgotten."

"You just don't get it… I received Huan because I was worthy. What is that filthy mortal, that he should be worthier than me? What does he have that I don't?! And Luthien – To think that he will touch her with his hairy hands, that he will cover her with his decaying mortal slobber until she rots away beneath him-"

"Get a hold of yourself, Celegorm. She's half-wizard. Whatever you felt or saw when you looked at her, rest assured that she probably does the exact same to anyone else who ever looked at her. If I weren't already bonded, I suppose even I would have been acted like a slobbering fool at her feet..."

"I shall never find another like her!"

"Of course not. Not any more than you should find anyone more skilled than father. That's just how she is, it doesn't have anything to do with you. You remember the Silmarils, don't you? What they looked like? What it was to behold them in father's vault?"

Celegorm wasn't sure he did – it had been so long...

"This is exactly the same thing. It's not the girl, it's what she looked like. Or how she smelled – the light of her. You could probably seal it in a gem, or extract it as a scented water, if only you could get a hold of her – Remember when the enemy used to go about in Tiron, making himself look seemly? Same thing. Put her out of her mind. Think of it as an illusion if it makes you feel better.

She's Thingol's spawn, and if that's all she were, she would be just another maiden, and it is her who had chosen that mortal for her plaything… all things considered, you might have dodged an arrow there."

But for once, Celegorm could find little satisfaction in his brother's clever words.

Before the rebellion, before everything, he had probably been the closest thing to a spiritual person among his brothers and the part of him that still believed… though not in any Valar as a person, in the sheer force of nature that came with them, the side of him that believed his instincts without question, had just known, and allowed himself to know, that he had seen the rivers and flowers themselves baked in flesh, and the very essence of all he ever sought to capture in the woods –

And that he'd been rejected. A mighty lord of vigorous prowess, he recalled the Earth shaking if not under the feet and the under the hoofbeats of his stallions and the paws of his hounds, and there was little that he could not make his dominion, and to be rejected by the likes of her felt like the very image of being cast from a great height as the burning cinder of some former glory, or what it was to reach for the light and scatter away like a moth.

What did it mean if his once faithful hound had forsaken him for that mortal? What did it mean that it was him who had caught that flower maiden for his prey, that it was he who had the Silmaril now, after they all had spent yeard grinding themselves to dust in their bid for it, since before his father's fathers were even thought off, until they were left as wandering, friendless vagabonds?

"You said I should have her."

"That was back then. The point of that, if you remember, was to make you King of Doriath, not for you to get all soppy over her!"

"...you really don't get it… you don't get it. Of course you don't… Your own** son** ditched you, and you didn't even flinch..."

"Why should I? I don't need him, any more than you need that Doriathrim witch-princess, or that mutt of yours. We don't need anyone or any of that, so long as we stick together…

Just think of father! A motherless, outcast only child all alone in this world. He once told me that he considered grandfather his only real ally. – well, and mother, but we've seen how faithless she proved herself to be. But did he give up? Did he lie down and take it?

No, he didn't. All he needed was his very clever words, and his very clever hands, and with that alone, he went and showed them, and now they all know his name even if they curse it. That's all we need. Just our hands, and the will to reach them out to seize what's ours! Stick with me, Celegorm, as long as we do that, we'll have all we need. "

Grandiose words. But trailing behind the pair, Darling couldn't help but feel that he was laying it on a bit thick. Was he trying to convince Celegorm, or himself? Referring to any sort of firstborn crown prince as a 'motherless outcast' was definitely a little bit over the top, and she didn't really get his beef with Nerdanel either. Had it not been their own decision to leave Valinor behind? She remembers standing proud and blood-stained at the harbor, hastily throwing her belongings onto a swan ship with little regard for whether or not she would scratch its floorings, and her husband gleeful beside her – No one had forced them to leave, and she recalls they were rather proud of this at the time.

**Act 2,5 – Scene 0,9999999999999999999999…..**

"...Have you told father that I'm here?"

"Most certainly not. He'd only make a scene, and if he does that here, not even Maedhros could talk him out of that one… I've come here alone, to speak with you."

"...About what? Have you repented of your deeds?"

" Repented of my-… this is hilarious. Guess I should have known that you would turn out to be a rebellious one, given that your're our son… It's a wonder you've been so well-behaved until now. But never mind that. You need to come back with us right now. I'll handle your father."

"Then draw your sword and drag me to him in pieces. Go on. Spill more blood. Do what you always do when you don't get what you want. "

At this, she only sighed.

"Look. This is for your own good. I meant what I said about the maternal foresight."

And he could tell, in her eyes, that she probably spoke the truth, and that in her own way, she had truly meant all that talk about looking out for his interests – in her ever-steely eyes, there was an actual spark of urgency, and he felt it flickering about her outline too, from her mind, as she insistently reached forward to grasp his forearms.

Her voice softened then, "Are you sure that you want to be a hero? Cause it's sour, thankless work, and the reward is rarely work the price. Just look at your uncle Maedhros. If he just focused on getting his instead of trying to be a hero along the way, well- I wouldn't go so far as to say that we would have the Silmarils back already, but he'd probably have an easier life. Perhaps one day he'll realize that he can't serve two masters. I for my part – well, there's a reason I went for the smart brother. For all your father's faults, you at least have to give him that."

It struck him there she had probably questioned his father and his family's antics more than she'd ever let them know to their faces, at least in her own crooked way, for all that acting as his father's yes-woman had been convenient to her.

But she was asking him to stay with bloodstained hands -

Thus he pulled away, and rebuked her indeed.

"We might be allied, but even so I don't imagine that the guards will be to thrilled to see an infamous kinslayer sneaking around at night, especially not in this part of camp. "

Ah yes, there it was, the self-rightheous, prideful bristling, puffing up to cover up where had touched him deep withhout his permission, and nigh inevitable "Get gone!"

"You know, in some ways, that's a better impression of him than your father ever managed. I had hoped that I might impart on you the wisdom not to pick fights he could not win, but I see now that this would be a futile endeavor. Your grandfather might have been a madman who died challenging a horde of balroggs-" (she seemed fairly confident that her son wouldn't tell her husband that she said that) "- but he never was a blind follower."

And thus she left him, wondering why he had been the one to be left fuming and dissatisfied when he was supposed to be the one doing the right thing, and it occurred him that for all her faults, she might have been right about one thing at least – today, he found the taste of righteousness ever so sour.

* * *

I couldn't resist implying that Feanor and Caranthir were the basis for the 'Faust' myth, hardly less on the nose than 'Avallone' or 'Atalante' XD  
Also I wanna note that I probably would've written Ambarussa only slightly less jaded if I had gone with the version where both survive till Sirion. Celegorm's the one that I have the least of a solid read on, but I wanted a scene with a mild disagreement/ contrast between him and Curufin, just to show them beginning to fray at the ends.  
Though I know that the degree of original flavor vs. modern artsyness has fluctuated wildly between the scenes, I hope that it'll be a bug rather than a feature. I'm picking based on what flows and what feels most efficient for the scene.


	4. Climax

Summary: No good deed goes unpunished, though neither do the wicked ones. Or, in terms of random evocative song lyrics, "He prayed for both, but was denied."

* * *

**Third Act, First Scene**

As soon as the crimson banners appear in the distance, a murmur rises up throughout the High King's camp – those eight-pointed stars of silver are unmistakable, but though the red cloth on which they are embroidered was once meant to represent the glow of the forge, most of the onlookers take it to mean something else now, for there are other things that are red.

Soon all the markings of a great host could be distinguished below them, but the approaching army does not immediately draw near to the King's soldiers –

They are encamped at the edges of a large, clear lake, around which the various factions involved in this great alliance are each engaged in stringing up their own tents, arranged like a selection on a platter or pigments on a swatch. The High King's people had been among the first to arrive out of Hithlum, and if it were up to him, he would have welcomed them all to sit around his own fires, but his counterpart from the Elder House thought it wiser to maintain separate positions in order to avoid quarrels, for all that it recalls the shadow of their reunion at Mithrim – and after all that has happened, the King could scarcely find the grounds on which to contradict him. Joined to his own host are all the forces of Hithlum and all the realms in the immediate vicinity, including many warriors of the Men who dwell there, but only a small token force had come from Nargothrond in the South, whilst the great kingdom of Doriath had sent a grand total of two warriors, renowned and storied as they might have been – the King had thought it best to send them to camp with the small force from Nargothrond, whose King was after all a distant kinsman of their own ruler, but from what he'd heard, neither Elu Thingol nor Orodreth would have anything to do with this endeavor, and there was little question as to why.

All across the camp, heads peeked past pavilion curtains and out of tents and spectators came out to gawk. The overall mood was one of wary tension, and many felt ill at ease as they watched the other host set up across the water, and split up in its component parts, separating into various factions of Dwarves, Men, and even some of the Northern Sindar, who had their own reasons not to fall in line with King Thingol – It was chiefly from them that the original followers of the elder house had picked up their Sindarin, so that the noticeable division in their speech had somehow endured even when now that most of them were speaking a different language altogether.

But through Northern Sindarin was the primary means of communication in their ranks, you would have heard a colorful mingle of various tongues as you approached the Feanorian camp, and witnessing all the disparate peoples they had rallied to their banner, you would have been reminded that for all that they are fearsome, they are also formidable.

For all that could be held against them, it was them who had still made this endeavor possible. In his correspondence with the High King, their leader had spent much pagetime discussing the best possible layout for their camp, to ensure that the various factions of Men which didn't really get along would have elvish or dwarven forces placed as buffers between them, and of course, it went without saying that the younger peoples would be fulfilling a similar role between the camps of the Noldor.

A great force of Dwarves was come from the realms of Nogrod and Belegost, sizable host of men, both out of the ranks of the Edain, and even further Men recruited from the eastern lands beyond Beleriand, and well-nigh the full might of the Noldor with Nargothrond of course as the one notable exception, resulting in one of the greatest armies and widest-reaching alliances that had ever been seen this side of the ocean… some of the High King's advisers had doubted if all this was necessary, or questioned if bringing in all these strangers wasn't an undue risk, and they might even be right, but could this endeavor even be attempted without such risk?

Who would know more about the extent of the foe's full might than one who had survived the pits of Angbad? Perhaps Galadriel did, with the kind of heightened perception and understanding she had, and she thought this whole strife whole futile, having resolved to wait it out in Doriath. Last they spoke, she told him that no good would come out getting involved with the purposes of damned men. Yet it was one such damned man who sought to confront the shadows even though he had seen their inky dephts.

For his part, the King – he who would be known as Fingon the Valiant – had never seen much use in dwelling on the rifts, slights and injustices of the past, but would rather focus on what could be done to preserve whatever was still in their grasp, and if his friendship with Feanor's eldest son had survived all that had come before, then it would have to be because Maedhros understood this as well, and shared that same wish. Fingon trusted him – No, even if he had known for a fact that his cousin _couldn't_ be trusted, he had never been the sort to think that one needed to wholly love and agree with someone before one could recognize that they had a point.

Damned man, Murderer or not, Maedhros spoke the truth: If the free peoples of Beleriand did not unite, what remained of their realms would be picked off one by one.

Surely, they could not stand by and do nothing? If it could be prevented, then not by inaction would that possibility be archived, and if it could not, then the worst he could do was to face the darkness standing on his feet, like his father and grandfather before him.

Those who saw King Fingon leave his tent to meet with his wayward cousins that day would have found him more festooned and emblazoned than they had ever seen him before, to the point that his crown was one of the more austere-looking pieces he was wearing. Those who knew him well would have taken this as a sign of how keenly he felt his new responsibilities despite the unfailing radiance of the smile he wore, an attempt to stave off any doubt or nervousness he still felt by shining all the brighter now that it should fall to him to guide the Noldor as a whole.

Not long was he left gazing across the water:

They came armed, but without additional guards, which, as such, had to be regarded as a compromise. Each of them was easily worth half an army, but they were too exposed to take on the whole camp with its own selection of formidable fighters – Even their father couldn't prevail against a horde of Balroggs all by himself. They could each do a lot of damage before they might be stopped, but if they should be foolish enough to try anything, it would be the last thing they ever did. But it was not so much their weapons which were feared, as it was the ease with which they were said to draw them, which would have made them dangerous enough with just their hands and feet.

The entire ruling family was come, complete with their wives, and to Fingon, their procession recalled all the times he'd seen them marching into the palace courtyard when he was but a child, sticking close together as some impenetrable unit – Except that there were too few of them. There was no Feanor striding proudly before them, no Nerdanel following calmly in the back with _both_ twins by her sides. Amras was, in fact, walking right beside his brother Celegorm, both of them in well-worn leather huntsman's clothes that had clearly seen better days. The softness of early youth was wholly gone from his now stoic, unreadable features, and he now appeared as fierce as any of his brothers.

All of them were still in their travel garb, wearing little ornament and looking rather worse for the wear. The ones that didn't have their arms and faces covered in freckles from dwelling under the open skies were pale from being long cooped-up in what remained of their fortresses.

None of them had arrived in much resembling royal finery, not even Curufin, who, if he'd had the option, would most certainly thrown on what little he still had in an act of defiance to the cousins he had once outranked at the time of his birth – Unaware passers-by might have thought that he had been recently robbed and feel some degree of sympathy, but many had heard enough to suspect something quite less innocent and doubted little that to be shamed in such a way was anything else than his just desserts. Even so, he kept his head held high, and was most certainly too proud to ask of his brothers what he would prefer to make for himself, or request his lady to share what little she had been able to carry on her person when they were cast from Nargothrond, which wasn't much – She had wisely prioritized their finer swords, of which he probably most thanked her for the one he now carried, not of his own make it was, nor a remnant from his once prized collection of dwarf-made specimens, but the same dark longsword he had used at Alqualonde, one of a set of eight made long ago by his father – Long it had hung on the walls of Curufin's abode, first at Himlad, then in Nargothrond, and many hours had he spent admiring his father's unparalleled handiwork, ever seeking to surpass it. He had preferred to use and experiment with his own weapons or frequently try out his own latest creations or the newest additions to his collection, but he couldn't say with confidence that anything he ever made had truly matched up to this blade.

Many had found Curufin's foible for tools of a war of all things to be somewhat disturbing, if perhaps not unexpected for a tainted kinslayer and the favored son of the first man to bring weapons of war to the paradise of Aman, some, in Nargothrond, had regarded him with a strange pity, which he'd despised most of all. Even his own son had called it orc-work in the end. None of them could appreciate the beautiful make, or the hours of labor that had gone in each piece of his collection, and certainly not his father's unsurpassed work – Even the Dwarves were closer to _getting it_… well, they weren't _quite_ the only ones. His wife had fetched that particular blade because she could tell at a glance which of their weapons were the better ones. Like him, she understood the beauty of the craft, but he didn't doubt that pragmatic concerns would always have won out in her considerations – even so, the old dark steel of this prized memento brought him more comfort than he cared to admit, and if others were determined to see a brazenly displayed, gruesome trophy from his first kill, well, they weren't exactly wrong, and any fear that might strike into their hearts might be used to his advantage.

Maedhros, along with Maglor and his wife, were garbed in dark cloaks, evidently still dressed for the cold of Himring, and Fingon didn't fail to note that the lady had a sword strapped to her back and carried herself with a hardier air than he ever recalled from her – nor did he miss the conspicuous absence of Celegorm's prized, enormous hound or Curufin's young son, who was neither with his disgruntled-looking parents, nor following behind with Caranthir's wife, who addressed Fingon with a brief wave of her right hand when she noticed him looking her way.

Out of any of them, it was the former ruling pair of Thargelion that most retained the look of nobility, perhaps because they had been able to escape with some of their considerable hoard when they fled – of course, many of those coffers had now been emptied for the war effort, but though they had been on the run for years, they were not yet so hard pressed that they couldn't risk their nicer robes for the voyage, or found themselves forced to sell their gold chains and hair ornaments, though rather than the dainty intricate creations brought from Aman, their choice of raiment reflected what, to most elves, would have appeared as custom-made variations on novel dwarven fashions, but to the dwarves, would have registered as gaudy fashion sins many decades out of date.

It might have been a different matter if one had encountered them during the years of peace, before many of them had been chased from their realms, but as of now, the contrast between the High King and his old friend couldn't have been greater: Where Fingon stood broad and glittering, garbed in white and blue with elaborate golden metalwork in his rich, dark hair, Maedhros came before him in black and red, leaner, almost ragged by sheer comparison, and if he was wearing as much as a circlet, it would have been because one of his brothers had talked him into it, a simple band of copper forged in a geometric pattern that he had been reluctant to melt down for arrowheads because it had been gifted to him by his grandfather Mahtan for his coming of age – yet even so he stood taller, and remained sublime and fearsome to behold, as one would expect of a terrific warrior from whom the orcs fled on sight.

It was a bad visual, Fingon decided, and Maedhros was about to make it worse:

He made a point of bending the knee, bringing the long fingers of his one remaining hand flat onto the dirt. Flame-colored locks touched the gray dust of the earth; His head bowed so low that one could almost forget that no one was calling this endeavor 'The Union of Fingon'.

Just this once, the Dispossessed had done nothing wrong; Quite the opposite. He had perceived the fragile hope glimmering through this land and succeeded in channeling it towards decisive action through little more than the force of his will, and he had done it by ever choosing unity and constructiveness over personal glory, by power gained through soft, intractable influence, valorous deeds and good counsels. As a diplomat, as a warrior and as a leader, he had proven himself beyond all doubt.

Had these deeds been accomplished by anyone other than himself, they would already have proved worthy of song, regardless of victory or defeat. Scarcely could his labors have been made easier by being who he was or having done what he did, as the son of such a father and the eldest of such brothers – but it was still considered terribly rude for one who, in another life, could have been a king, to go around showing signs that he could have been good at it, and there was little he could do to redress that, no matter how much he debased himself in apology.

"Hail your Majesty, High King of the Noldor! Once more, I have come to offer the services of my house, as I had served your noble father before you."

Never mind how the other side would spin this, or where his own would see deliberate spectacles where none had been intended – Fingon _himself_ felt his heart ache for his poor cousin, but more than that he felt a longing for the days where they could just speak in earnest as kinsmen, or at least as friends, without having to agonize about the fragile political tightrope dance between avoiding strife and yet showing enough strength to keep all of their quarrelsome followers placated and yet willing to trust them with their lives, bodies and spirits.

At the same time, he realized that Maedhros must be in just as much of a bind, if not worse: 'Offer', he said, not 'pledge', for he was pledged otherwise, and constrained by his own considerations and circumstances. Even now, he was paying, both for every single one of his own sins, and for every time that his father had told Fingon's to get himself back to his place.

But even less than his father before him, Fingon had never believed in games and now that the burden of the crown had come to rest on his shoulders, he thought _more_ and not less important to hold steadfast to what he believed:

"Peace, my friend!" he greeted, his smile as radiant as ever as he reached his arms out for his cousin's shoulders in a friendly, affectionate gesture – in a way, he thought this to be the greatest show of strength there could be. "It's only me, your kinsman. I trust that you've seen me wearing many golden bands in our time, what difference is one more going to make? I welcome you not as my vassal, or a strategic ally, or even as a relation, but as my closest confidant and dearest friend. Please, stand, and walk right beside me!"

Without a moment's hesitation, he offered his hand, and Maedhros indeed took it, first cautiously, and then, grasping firmly all at once – Fingon could even have sworn that he'd spied the ghost of a smile just for an instant, and in that moment, only just right there, there was something like a vague, heady feeling of fragile hope shared between them.

**Third Act, Second Scene**

Though his own goals might have been far from friendship and reconciliation, Curufin did, to his credit, realize that even his own craftier designs would be better served by the success of these efforts, at least for the moment. Though what he thought, or claimed to think, depended largely on whoever seemed to be asking - "Did he _have_ to go so far as bowing?" he'd groaned to Celegorm. To Caranthir, whom he expected to agree with his sentiment but was less likely to keep a secret, he simply remarked what a shame it all was, and how it was their house that should have had the kingship. To his wife, he spoke mostly what he truly thought, save only for a few trivial details that he wished to keep from her scrutiny, just to make things easier.

In truth, he thought that people rarely ever had just a single feeling or reaction to something, and less even a single self that was always unconflicted and consistent. At most one might have a favorite mask, but in the end, every one was bound to harbor an entire canon of dissenting voices – which, if you fancied yourself a bit of a method actor, could be a near infinite wellspring of invaluable resource, from which, with practice, one might learn to pull forth the right 'I' for any particular situation or purpose, the one that would be wanted and listened to, the one whose silver-tongued suggestions would be taken with open arms because their designated mark was already seeking for it – Sometimes it was just that easy. He'd applied this strategy countless times, and got quite used to getting what he wanted.

So when Maedhros came forth from the tent and the rest of them were at last gathered together, Curufin's tune was quite changed and certainly calculated, but still, in a sense, genuine: "Good brother of mine, I can't _stand_ to see you treated in such a way. I can't _believe_ how he paraded you around like this..."

Maedhros didn't find this encouraging, but thought it more helpful not to press the issue for the time being. He could chastise him later, when there was less risk of causing an incident; For now, his mind was wholly on the logistics of the Union, and he thought it better not to pursue that train of thought for now, just as he had decided to proceed regarding the Doriath issue – for now, he too would play along: "Brother, I assure you that the High King has received me with the utmost hospitality. I owe him my life, in case you have forgotten."

"Does that mean that because you were once in his debt, he gets to walk all over you whenever he pleases? It should be _you_ brother! And if not you, then Celegorm!"

"And what would that accomplish? It would not get us any closer to the Silmarils, if that is the argument you were going to invoke. I've told you many times. Our strength alone isn't sufficient against the enemy. If we fight among ourselves, it can only be in his favor."

"What of Doriath? Is Doriath unassailable? They've done nothing to aid us, so they're worthless for that purpose."

"We'll worry about that later, when we're in a better place to negotiate. For now, there are two Silmarils still left in Morgoth's crown. This alliance might be our only chance to get them."

"Alright, big brother, alright… I suppose I'll just have to keep my faith in you for now..."

**Third Act, Third Scene**

"A feast, at a time like this?"

"_Especially_ at a time like this! It has been so long since we were all gathered in one place, and who knows when it shall be thus again."

Softened up by the shining gallantry of his old friend, even Maedhros could not help but relent somewhat. "I suppose you are right. Even my brothers and I have not had the time for that many reunions… I will speak to Amras and Celegorm, see if they can find a boar or something like that, this will also give them a chance to catch up..."

Though the same could not be said for her husband, Caranthir's wife seemed excited with the idea, though she duly tried to hide it. She had already made many attempts at swapping stories on the way here, especially with her law-sisters, whom she could expect to provide her with more talk than she'd be used to from the sharp and moody brothers.

They did have much to tell each other – the last time they had come together to this sort of large military encampment was around the rising of the sun; Back then they had still spoken to each other in Quenya and called each other different names. Now they stood here, each changed, each gone through a different story, Steel-Gleam, Guarded-Pearl and Tale-Weaver.

Dearest endured much unintentional embarrassment (from Sweetie) and very intentional teasing (from Darling) about how their house clearly seemed to have managed to make a noble lady of her after all, though she was reluctant to accept Darling's barbed compliment about how she had duly taken the place of Nerdanel.

But for Sweetie's graciousness, they both had admiration.

**Third Act, Fourth Scene**

It was only when they had not just retreated to the privacy of the royal tent but duly served the needs of duty that the two old friends came to converse in earnest, after hours spent pouring over maps and battle plans. Of course, it was Fingon who first brokered the subject of personal conversation:

"I couldn't help but notice that Celebrimbor wasn't with you. You didn't… lose him, did you?"

"No, nothing so grim as that. He remained behind in Nargothrond, from what I've heard, he had a bit of a falling out with his parents."

That was the diplomatic answer, which betrayed little of Maedhros' own thought, and Fingon decided to do him a favor and refrain from pressing it, for that would change little.

"I'm sad to hear that," said the King, as a formality "But I suppose in the end he can do whatever he wants, seeing as he's a grown man – older than Orodreth, actually, and he's got a daughter of his own now…"

"Ah."

He didn't seem to have known. Under other circumstances, Fingon might have said something about hoping for a chance to meet her, but after all that had befallen, with all the bad blood, it was highly unlikely that they should ever come together as a family even now that their numbers seemed to be dwindling more than they were increasing – There was no way in hell that Orodreth was going to let his daughter anywhere near an associate of the ones who had plotted to overthrow his uncle, so it should have been no surprise that Maedhros had never seen her. All of this would have been much easier if Finrod were still alive, but as it was, Fingon increasingly found himself in an awkward midway position, especially as he was supposed to mediate in his role as High King.

Not seldom did his mind stray to the days when his siblings and cousins had all been alive and in one place, playing music with grandmother Indis, never to be good at it, but only for the togetherness and joy – a few precious times, even Maedhros and Maglor had joined in, but through all this, he refused to be daunted or dimmed.

A strange friendship was theirs, and one that had surprised many on account of their father's enmity, and yet in other ways, it made so much sense – Fingon's stubborn refusal of all bitterness was just as much a way of pressing on as Maedhros' grim determination. Very deliberately did he then seek to divert the conversation not so much from the Mumakil in the room as from gaping chasms:

"Perhaps it's not so bad that he stayed behind. At least that way we can count him safe. I myself have sent my wife and young Ereinion to Falas, just in case anything goes wrong."

"Would they be welcome there?"

"I can't say that everyone there would be glad to see us walking in the streets, but Cirdan has been more obliging than Thingol, perhaps because the efforts of your brother Celegorm once kept his realm from being overrun, so I suppose I owe this to you. Cirdan is not held to be a wise and respected elder for nothing, and he understands that our son is not at fault for what befell before he was even so much as begotten. Although..."

"Although what?" asked Maedhros, earnestly interested.

"Well, if worst came to worst, and I were to have my choice, I'd want him to be somewhere safe, but not someplace so removed from the world as large as Turgon's stronghold. You don't have a son of your own, do you? And you have plenty of experience from looking at your younger brothers- "

As soon as the eldest son of Feanor realized was his cousin was suggesting in allusions, he sadly shook his head. "Fingon, I have nothing. I could offer your family nothing but the single strip of icy land I have to my name, and that is if I can even succeed to hold it against the encroaching might of the enemy. Would have your only child raised by an accursed, blood-stained vagabond?"

"I would have him growing up with his kinsmen, in the house of my best friend."

"Then, with great shame, I'm afraid to say that I cannot return my debt of friendship to you. You purpose to keep your child away from the front lines, and I cannot leave them. Not while my oath is left unfulfilled."

"You can't possibly still be thinking-"

"We swore in the name of the One, and father made us reaffirm our vows as he lay dying. I'm pledged to seek the jewels, and if we're victorious in the coming battle, it might not even be the last thing I do. But until then, I'm afraid that I have no room for further commitments. I cannot promise you anything in good conscience – your son is much safer with Cirdan."

Looking at Maedhros, Fingon couldn't help but think that he had the look of a man walking to his executions, and all his sense of justice revolted. Unbidden words forced their ways to the tip of his tongue, and he almost thought better of saying them, but in the end, there was a certain boldness inside him that would not be silenced: "You know that I have never seen a point in hating, blaming or resenting anyone, except perhaps for the enemy himself. But right now, I'm finding it really hard not to be mad at Uncle Feanaro. It just seems too cruel – I would have thought that he would use his last breaths to tell you he loved you, not ask you to pledge yourselves to lifetimes of fighting. Did he even care to think what he was asking you to give away? Did he think in his arrogance that you would win so easily?"

"I doubt he thought we could win at all", said Maedhros. "From the look in his eyes when he beheld the peaks of Thangorodhrim, to his desperate curses at the enemy when he knew his time was nigh- I think he perceived that we could not win at all."

"Then how _could_ he?"

"Because he _still_ would not yield. Though he knew his time was come, he held on to the last. And if you say that he is to be faulted for that, then how much more fault must you lay at my feet? Because what he only glimpsed as a glimmer of foresight, I have felt carved into my own body, and I could never forget. Our foe is the single mightiest thing to reside in the circles of the world, and sometimes I find myself in doubt if all else in it combined could stand up to him – though it might be that this is simply the voice of the marks he has left on me.

But we _still cannot yield. _Should we just sit back and accept it all, and tell ourselves that all our actions ceased to matter the day we were touched by the taint of this imperfect world? If there's even the slightest chance that we should win, then that possibility would surely not be brought to fruition by our idleness – but I even if there was no hope at all, I dare to say that we should not yield. Should we just accept thralldom, or the destruction of all we hold dear? Should we just endure our doom?

If we must fall, I say we go kicking and screaming into the fires and make the darkness drag us all the way!"

The intensity in his look was outright frightening and could never have been captured by any milder word. Despite himself, Fingon was forced to admit in his heart that for all that he held them to be worlds different, Maedhros was still Feanor's son – in the heat of his soul, and in the unyielding strength of his will, the son might even surpass the father; And there was so much that Fingon wished he could tell him, so much he wanted to do, like to clasp all that ardent life of his into his arms and tell him that it was worth much more than his father's silly gems, and that he was a better man than their maker had ever been – but he knew that Maedhros would hear none of it. Sensible and constructive-minded as Fingon had always found him to be, his loyalty to his family and to their cause was just as adamant and non-negotiable as it would have been for any of his brothers, and in a way, it was an inextricable part of what made him who he was, so Fingon was not even fully sure if he would change it.

So all he could say was this:

"You're quite possibly one of the bravest people I've ever known."

"That would mean a lot coming from any of your father's children, but all the more from you."

"You suppose when can at least manage that much then? Face the enemy on our feet and without flinching? Die like we mean it? Like our fathers, and like grandfather, who faced both the enemy and the spider?"

At the mention of Ungoliant, Maedhros flinched.

"Don't say that. You didn't see what was left of him when they were done with him. There's no doubt that he stood and faced them, but there was no fight at all."

Fingon swallowed. There wasn't much between heaven and earth that could incline him to do so for reasons unrelated to chewing.

"Of course, only he and the enemy would truly know, and whoever he might have told in Mandos - My brothers and I were out when it happened..."

"I thought as much as soon as I heard. I've heard many worrisome things about your brothers as of late, but no one ever said that they were faithless or craven."

Maedhros' eyes lost their sharp focus as his thoughts drifted through the pages of the now-distant past.

"Father was in a foul mood before he even left, he was fuming and raging the whole time that he was getting ready, and then he departed dressed as a beggar, or as one in mourning, and by the time he was out the gate, he had grandfather worried sick and my brothers all riled up. Looking back, I think we all felt that something was coming, but at the time, I liked to hope that we were all just getting stir-crazy. Before Formenos, we had never once stayed in one place for so long. My brothers were getting restless and were bound to stir up trouble – I myself wanted out of the walls. So I proposed that we go wandering to pass the time until father returns.

Above all, I thought that once father came back, we would tell him about something we had found or seen, give him something to occupy his mind to take the edge of his wounded pride, and then maybe, in a few hundred years, your father and mine might actually speak to each other again without drawing forth any sharp objects, and then we might forget all this talk of sedition-

I was just trying to consider what mother might have done, had she been there with us, but since that day, I have wondered many times if all this madness might have been prevented if only we had stayed behind."

"Then I will tell you what my father told yours when he blamed everything on the summons: You would have died as well, all seven of you, and that should have been the only difference. Will you prove yourself be just as unreasonable? Has he made you swear to that as well?

Maybe there's a reason that you weren't at Formenos that day. Some role that is left for you to play, on whose account the Eagles of Manwe have granted you their mercy."

"The powers of this world give and take away, but they give the most part to those whom they love. That mercy was granted for your sake, not mine. I know better than to expect to get back across the bridges that I have burned myself. I'm a damned man, Fingon. bound for the Everlasting Darkness. I'm just trying to do what I can before I go there. You have been a better friend than I deserve, but _as your friend_, the best I can do is to tell you to forget about me. The last thing you could want is to involve your young son with one such as myself. His hands never killed. Best that he stay free from the stains of our past."

Now it was Fingon's turn to lean back with a sigh;

"You could at least have let me introduced you to him!"

"I know enough about him from our correspondence to fill a small book."

"...Perhaps some other time then." he insisted, steadfastly refusing the looming shadow of 'never'. "At least there is a chance that we might meet up with Aredhel's son once Turgon's army joins us."

"...What? Fingon, since when does your sister have a son?"

"You don't know." said the High King as sharp realization blossomed on his features. "Of course you don't know, Turgon hardly ever lets _me_ hear from him, and I'm his brother."

He ran a gold-laden hand through his face. "Maedhros. Aredhel is dead. She has been dead for a good two-hundred years."

**Third Act, Fifth Scene**

Maglor was evidently fighting back tears and holding onto his stunned, speechless wife, but that wasn't the part that had Fingon surprised – He was Maglor.

What he didn't expect was that they _all_ looked stricken, as surely as if the king's sister had been their own. Suddenly they were no longer the fell, haughty princes who had ruled in Beleriand for centuries since before the rising of the sun, but the wild, rambunctious boys who had loved to chase their lady cousin through the gardens. Void-bound kinslayers and plot-hatchers or not, their grief was every bit as real and immediate as Fingon's own had been, every bit as raw – but of course it was. Of all the descendants of Indis, Aredhel the White Lady might have been the only one to whom the brothers felt a real sense of kinship. She was the only one whose boundless energy came anywhere close to keeping pace with the anomalous vigor of the seven brothers, and that, to them, had been something sufficiently precious and tempting for it to outweigh all their father's misgivings regarding her father – they had often taken her along on their wanderings, especially Celegorm and the twins, who had also been fond of the woodlands. Alone among the three branches of their house they had no sister, but often they had thought that if they had one, she would have to be just like Aredhel. Turgon was always somewhat uneasy about that unlikely friendship, but Fingon for his part had always been glad to see that his sister had found someone who understood her in that way. She had always been awfully fond of the seven, even the more difficult ones, or, indeed, _especially_ of those, and now it was plain to see that they had loved her in return.

Plain on Amras' face was the softest expression that Fingon had seen there since whatever had happened to his twin. Caranthir was shaking with rage from head to toe, his face averted as if he could not suffer the look of it too be seen – beside him, his wife had buried her face in her hands. Maedhros was still looked as stunned and dumbstruck as when Fingon had first told them.

The look in Celegorm's eyes was downright murderous; He'd jumped from his place with both hands ready at his sides, but there was nowhere to point his fury, as the murderer who so deprived him was long gone beyond his reach to Mandos.

Besides Curufin, even his hardy, callous lady was gaping open-mouthed, but it was the blacksmith himself who made for the most unlikely sight: Halfway through Fingon's explanation, he had suddenly gone white as a sheet, gray eyes wide as glacial pool, and a wholly unfamiliar new expression crossed through his dismayed face – Fingon had always known him as haughty, contemptuous and unscrupulous, seldom showing much warm feelings in matters other than his fanatical admiration of his father and perhaps boyish relish in his craft and research.

Now, for perhaps the first time that his cousin could remember, he looked positively consumed with guilt.

"An Avarin blacksmith in black armor, you say?! Carrying some strange dark blade- "

All eyes turned to him, especially those of Celegorm: "What's the matter?"

"I've _met_ him. I'm positive. I wouldn't forget the sight of that strange iron. Do you remember that time back in Himlad, when we were called about some suspicious stranger at our borders?

I met him. And I _let him go._"

It was then that Celegorm fully grasped his brother's train of thought: "Wasn't that around the time that some of our scouts saw a woman and a youth pass through the edges of our territory? Oh stars, _was that her? _They did say that she wasn't dressed like a Sinda-"

"She still lived then. She still lived when I let him go. To think that she was in Nam Emloth that whole time..."

Now it was Fingon's turn to be bewildered: "What do you mean, 'That whole time'?!"

"She said she was going to visit us." explained Celegorm, his eyes still wide with disbelief "Just a few years before that, but we weren't there when she showed up. We were both at Caranthir's, and we tarried.. We even brought Celebrimbor with us. She can usually handle herself in the wild, and I think not even old Fingolfin knew where Turgon's hideout was, so I never thought anything of it… We though she'd gotten bored waiting, and fumed to ourselves about our abysmal timing and how much she would have loved it at Lake Hevelorn-"

"Wait… She was headed for _Himlad?_ Turgon told me she was coming to _Hithlum!_ No wonder we never found her, we were looking for her on the wrong side of the country!"

"Couldn't Turgon have send some bloddy escorts with her?!" growled Caranthir.

But Celegorm had already connected the dots further: "Don't you get it?! He probably _did_. Knowing what an insufferable square he always used to be, he probably sent his best warriors. But you're forgetting what's in between Hithlum and Himlad. _Doriath._ Stars-forsaken _Doriath_. Somehow it's always Doriath! That bastard who has dared take father's jewel. His goons would have denied her passage. Same reason why Curufin and I had to spend forever gavilating 'round the landscape 'til we washed up at Nargothrond… And isn't Nam Enloth technically part of his domain anyways? I'll kill him!" he snarled, "I swear it right now, I'll kill him, and I'll rip the Silmaril from his breast, and if it's the _last_ thing I do in my life_!_"

Before Maedhros, Maglor or Fingon had the time to be scandalized at that and remind them that they were at least nominally allied and that they could scarcely afford for Thingol's impressive two (2) warriors to return with the news that such things were being shouted across their camp, it was _Curufin_ of all people who bade Celegorm and a hardly less irate Caranthir to be silent, calling back his tougher, stockier older brothers with but a gesture of his arm.

"Kill him we might, but it was not his spear that struck her. It was that strange forest-dweller. Damn him to the Void, him and Thingol both. I couldn't stand him one bit, and I'd heard from him before – he apparently had dealings with the local dwarves, and there was something going on with him trying to stir them up against us. The thought was in my mind that I should just slit his throat and be done with it, but instead I sent him on his merry way…"

And at last the ends of his composure crumbled, and he looked up with blazing eyes that were wet at the corners.

"I should have _**slaughtered ****that miserable wretch right**** where he stood!**_"

And Fingon couldn't decide what disturbed him more: The way that their hearts and minds had immediately turned to bloodshed as a solution with startlingly little restraint, all this casual talk of the Void, or that he found, to his own horror, that there was a little part of him that, while it might not agree or condone, wouldn't terribly _mind_ if Curufin _had_ murdered just one more stranger in cold blood, if that would have returned his dear-beloved sister to his arms. He had not been wholly guiltless at Alqualonde, so perhaps this was a sign that he too bore the indelible taint of his sins.

But the thought was there – what if Curufin had slain the dark elf? Or what if they had found his sister on the way, or if she had reached them to begin with? Would they still have taken the same paths that led them then at last to Nargothrond? With her to look after, to touch and bring out this more feeling side of them, would they have sunk to the same deeds? Unscrupulous they were but if they let her would-be murderer go it would be because even they would flinch away from killing without any reason – would Aredhel, who was bold and steadfast, and every bit like a sister to both her sets of cousins, have been able to broker some sort of truce between Curufin, Celegorm and Finrod, so that the former would never even bothered hatching any sort of plot? Could Finrod, born to Thingol's own niece, have gone on to defuse that situation if he'd lived? Maybe get King Greycloak to return his extravagant bride-price right after receiving it? Or was that underestimating the attraction of the stone, the binds of the oath and the subtle works of the doom that was set to make even the most well-intentioned and best-meant of their works come to nothing?

Doom or no doom, kinslayers or not, damned or otherwise, for all the reasons that both Fingon and his cousins had to doubt each other, none could deny the other's real grief for their fallen sister, and so for once they were united in their hearts as their fathers had never been, and as they wept for her, Fingon felt his own tears welling up again and the king all too easily joined into their grief for his poor, unhappy sister, her miserable end and her crushed dreams of freedom, the same dream they had all chased and at least imperfectly attained for however short a time.

It should be the first time and the last that Celegorm, Caranthir or Curufin ever threw their arms around one of Indis' grandsons in any sort of brotherly gesture.

**Third Act, Sixth Scene**

"And you're certain that Turgon will back our assault?"

"He tells me he's got as much as ten thousand soldiers ready to go. I know it sounds a bit too good to be true, but my brother is not the sort to exaggerate."

"It's not that I doubt the strength of his armies. I just find it surprising that he would lend them to our cause. I know that he has little reason to trust me or my brothers, or bear any particular love for our house._"_

"He wants to do the right thing. Why would that be surprising? Whatever his personal feelings might be, he is serious about dealing with Morgoth and saving as much of our people from destruction as he can. He made plans where others sat idle. In that sense, the two of you are rather alike. Believe me, Russandol, my brother is the most natural ally you could have."

With the heavy gravity of the moment hanging in the room, Fingon keenly felt the temptation to just blurt something out, like he had often done to lighten his family's spirits in dark and troubling times.

"...what would you and your brothers even _do_ with the Silmarils if you had them? Keep them in a box? Take turns wearing them? There's three of them, and six of you. Will each of you get to wear all three for one day of the week or two of you each get to share one, or would only you, Maglor and Celegorm get one-?"

Maedhros could do little more than to blink at the impertinence; Rarely did he hear his father's peerless hallowed work spoken off in such a manner.

With the odds of defeat being so overwhelming, the stakes so high, and so many others involved, Maedhros had never really given this question real thought – there was never any 'when', there was barely even an 'if'.

But Fingon, who as always made all existence look effortless, just looked at his cousin with wide open eyes.

"What. It's a legitimate question… Besides I'm actually curious, you know I've always had a weakness for shiny things! I've told you before, I might be the king but I'm still me…. You don't suppose that you could spare at least one for Yavanna, do you?"

"That would be a difficult thing to convince my brothers of… Would one alone even be enough? I don't know how they work, neither does Curufin. Even father didn't think he could do it a second time, and he told no one what they're made of. On top of that, Father wasn't just any normal elf- there's a good chance that even if you knew exactly how he did it, it might be impossible without his unique level of skill, or kill you if you tried it. And I know even less about how the Valar would go about bringing back the light – it's possible that they would need all three. To be honest, I doubt it can be done."

"Since when does that stop _you,_ Russandol? Not too long ago you were going on about how you're all about laughing the word 'impossible' in the face. If anyone could convince your brothers of anything, it would have to be you! Or perhaps we'd have to go and get Aunt Nerdanel. "

"You know…" said Maedhros, as if a new thought had occurred to him of all sudden, "I think we actually _could_ do it, if we wanted to… _whoever hideth or hoardeth, or in hand taketh, f__inding keepeth or afar casteth… _None of us said anything about _giving them_ of our own free will. If we _chose_ to hand them over, no one would be hiding or keeping them from us, and we should have kept our promise…"

"See? Maybe there _is_ a role for you to play."

"I wouldn't count my chickens before they've hatched. Before we could freely give them, we would first need to have them in our possesion… and Celegorm and Curufin can be really really stubborn sometimes."

"Well of course, they're _your_ brothers." Fingon sighed. "You see, that's another of those things that… kind of make me mad about your father, no offense. He kept you from us. He acted like he wasn't wanted at the palace but every time he'd come to visit, grandfather would race to the door so fast he'd step on his royal robes. Your father would have been _very_ wanted. _He_ didn't want to live with _us._ I think if he'd stayed- If all of you had grown up together with us, just like Finrod, Artanis and the others, then we would all have been as close as brothers and none of this pointless bitter strife would ever have come between us."

"No, not possible." Maedhros shook his head. "My poor brothers, and most of all, my poor father, stuck in the palace all year- I really think he couldn't have borne it, even if there had never been any strife between us. Not sure I could take it to be honest. We couldn't have stood it and then perhaps the strife would have come between us in some other manner. If he always had to be doing the same thing, in the same place – I honestly think he would just have laid down and refused to ever get up again."

"That's rather what grandfather always feared wasn't it? So much that he never once told Uncle Feanaro to shut up... - I know I know, he was your father, and he had his merits, I can admit that, I don't hate him and I do have sympathy for him but-"

"I_ know_ that father had his faults, Finno. He should _never _have left you and your father behind on the ice. But even so, the truth is… We don't belong. We never did. So if we die, don't expect that you will see any of us in Tirion ever again... But that's not your fault, or your father's, and certainly not that of Lady Indis. It's just how it is – no one's fault. Except maybe that of Morgoth when he mucked up the universe, long before any of us were even though of."

"You do know that there are those who say that it's us who should never have been, right? That grandfather should never have remarried. "

"Then they they must not have eyes in their face."

"Even your father?"

"Yes." Maedhros practically groaned. "Even him. I'm not ever saying that again. But I can understand that he hasn't done much to make you like him. Nothing of how he acted towards you or Uncle Fingolfin made anything better…"

"I think father always thought that he needed to.. justify himself. To prove that he was worth the trouble of having Feanaro in the world. To make up for him, or for whatever wrong he thinks we did to him - Maybe that's why he thought he needed to go and fight _Morgoth._" Despite his best efforts, Fingon couldn't quite keep the bitterness out of his voice here, but Maedhros knew that it wasn't directed at him. "It's probably why he came to Ennore… But I know that it's not the same. When they look at us, they think that it's grandfather who did something wrong. When they look at _you_, it's like you're what's wrong. That's why I can't bring myself to hate Feanaro, though I can't like him either. Hate in general seems pretty pointless to me."

"Then you are wise… but you know, I think that if everything had gone as it should, then maybe grandfather would have had one son, or many sons- and maybe one of them would even be fairly good with his hands, and sort of forceful – But he wouldn't be father. And if that son then went on to get married, I assume that he would have had children – probably a couple less – but they wouldn't be my brothers. Or maybe, grandfather would simply realized that Lady Indis liked him from the very beginning, and grandmother would still be spending her days doing her incomparable needleworks, never having met him-

So maybe when we've all gone to the Everlasting Darkness, the world will only go back to the way it was supposed to be."

"Don't talk about yourself like you're some sort of… _orc._ You're my _friend_. My best friend. Despite everything. And I want you to know that, even if we really _**don't**_ ever meet again. "

"And I thank you for that, no matter what happens tomorrow… I'm glad we spoke about all this.

If you come to Valinor, and by some chance get to be reembodied, please tell my mother that I'm sorry. "

"Only if _you _tell _my_ mother that I'm sorry if _you_ get to Valinor."

"I can't promise anything to anyone at this point, but I will do all in my power if I get the opportunity... You know something? I wish that our fathers could have spoken to each other like this. This might sound strange to you - indeed, it would have sounded strange to me, before I came to Beleriand and came to know your father a lot better- but I think they had a lot more in common than either of them ever realized."

**Third Act, Seventh Scene**

"Sister, wait."

Well-nigh finished with fastening all their gear to themselves, Dearest had though herself just about ready to depart with her husband, and had not expected to speak with her law-brothers until the army as a whole was due to begin its march. A single look at Maglor's face told her that he was just as surprised as she was to see the brothers, of which there stood the oldest and the youngest, unmistakable with their flaming red hair, themselves ready for battle and only just arrived at the edge of the tent which the couple had emptied but not yet dissembled.

Seeing that he had the pair's attention, Meadhros cast one last look at Amras, as if he were waiting for some final approval, and, when the younger elf nodded nonchalantly, with little change in his distant eyes, held out what he was carrying in his hand – He couldn't exactly present it to her with just one hand, so out of necessity he handed it over like one might a broomstick, but there was still enough weight in his gesture to appear solemn and ceremonial.

Whatever it was, Maglor recognized it, and looked up his brothers with almost scandalized stare, his eyes darting between the two of them a few times, though it seemed that he mostly expected the resolving intervention from Amras. "...You can't be serious."

"We've discussed it, and we've decided that this might be for the best." Only after that was as settled as he felt it needed to be could he afford Dearest the luxury of an explanation: "This was forged by our father, so it's the best blade you could possibly ask for. Since you might well be up against the worst of the enemy's creatures, we thought it best if you take this. I have seen for myself that you should have the skill to use it."

But Dearest knew that that alone would not have explained her husband's trepidation – Having accepted the weapon, she withdrew it from its sheath, and only then did she recognize it, the long, dark masterful make unchipped, undulled and unfaded through the ages. It was the same as Curufin's, the same, in fact, as each of the brothers once had one, though not all of them still used them. There was an eighth blade once, but it was lost with its maker, molten down by Balrogg-fire.

"So this is…?!"

"Yes. It was owned by my brother." Amras did not need to specify which one. "But he left it with me so I don't think he would've cared much for where it ends up… It makes no difference to me if you take it." he stressed that last part, just slightly, though more to reassure his brothers. His indifference seemed real, though no less unsettling for it.

On the heels of the cold realization, Dearest gained a newfound awareness for its weight, and yet, she swung the fell sword in a few tentative motions, as if to get a feel for it, tempted by its smooth flow through the air despite her thick, syrupy trepidation.

Has he known then and there what sorts of deeds she would one day commit with this blade in hand, she would have cast it as far from herself as she could, or perhaps pierced the men before her to release them from their futures, or in payment for leading her to this fate, for neither would she be the last to wield it.

As of now, her only warning was a profound unease in her gut and her tried old dreams of burning sails.

"I- I can't accept this. Wouldn't Curufin have a fit?"

Maglor shook his head, a faint bitter exhaustion entering his voice. "It is he who kept saying for centuries that we might as well use it."

"Are you against it?"

"I can't be, my Dearest. Maedhros is right. This came from father's hands – it should go through dragon-scale like warm butter. That alone is why I should want you to have it."

"Be warned however," said Maedhros, "It's double-edged."

"Of course. It would be."

**Third Act, Eighth Scene**

Still it is said that despite all the delays and divisions, the Sons of Feanor might still have been victorious, if all their hosts had been faithful.

And this maddening thought they would have to hold onto, if they wished to escape the conclusions that all their efforts had been vain from the outset, and all their sins unjustified.

If anyone other than the remnants of the Gondolirhim division escaped with their lives at all, Elf or Dwarf or otherwise, it would have been in no small part due to the valor of the brothers, who gathered the various survivors around them and rallied them to hack a way through their sudden encirclement. Dearest and Darling were right there with them, hard-pressed even before their fortunes turned.

The day did begin bleak and dreadful, and only with some delay did they notice it swaying that way.

Darling of course was a seasoned veteran at this point, and most of the concerns in her mind were specific, pragmatic ones; Dearest, however, stood there emboldened by the determination of one whose day is finally come, and grasping her dark blade firmly in her hand, she stuck close to her husband and his older brother, committed to the vital task of guarding the backs of their armies' commanders, though she thought, at first, that she would not have much more to do than to decapitate the occasional stray orc who'd pushed too far through the formation, for the two of them did not seem like they would be requiring any sort of assistance.

Maglor was swift, agile and deadly, and to behold Maedhros on the battlefield was a numinous experience not too far removed from his brother's music, for he cleaved through all that barred his path like a living, white-hot blaze.

Little did Dearest know that she would be parrying what might otherwise have been critical strikes on a precarious retreat before the red of sunset would be melting into the horizon.

Darling was on the front lines, next to her husband and such of his brothers who would not be elsewhere, hacking away at their foes while all chance of victory gradually evaporated with every time she was made to revise the calculations in her mind.

At first, they were barely daunted, even when the enemy's full bestiary of dragons, vampires and werewolves were poured out against them - Curufin smiled with glee when he spotted the Balrogg commanding the monstrous company - "That one's mine!"

In her disbelief, Darling didn't react fast enough to convince him to turn back.

"Don't run _towards_ that, you incomparable fool!"

Perhaps it was for the better that her words never reached him in the din of battle, for Curufin would have found it hard to forgive her.

Celegorm had led the vanguard, and alongside Caranthir, he fell upon their foes with savage battle cries, rending whatever would cross his path. But determined as they were to take whatever was before them, none of them expected an assault from behind, and so absorbed were they in pressing forward that they didn't realize what was happening until it was sorely too late.

With typical haste, Celegorm rushed to the back, but all he accomplished was to disrupt the chain of command at the front, all the while cursing the mortals. Middle Earth had changed him, too – he'd lost some of his once effortless confidence, replaced with the look of a cornered beast lashing out.

Under any other circumstance, Curufin would have been the one to… certainly not restrain, but rather redirect his more impulsive brothers and their respective followers towards some _ordered_ form of mayhem, but by then, he was half-heartedly resisting Darling's attempt to sling his arm over her shoulder so she could support him as they fled.

"I can still fight!"

"With those burns? I think not. We need to get out of here _now. _You'll thank me later."

He never did thank her, but her insistence most likely saved his life anyways.

Looking back at this day most who had lived through it would connect it with maddening despair and futility, but the heat of that particular fever would be grown and reinforced through the years of misery that came afterwards, the long days with nothing to do but hide, the licking of wound and counting of losses – At the time, the survivors felt nothing but the simple immediate pain of their injuries, and the confusion of trying to piece back together what just happened.

Later, when they would have begun to assemble their impressions and sensations into a narrative, they would begin to doubt their very eyes and those puzzle pieces which did not fit with this tale of defeat – still many would have sworn that they had seen the standards of Fingon, not off in the distance, but within reach. For a time all seemed up in the air, like they could have counted the steps it would take them to get there, but then their front began to be pushed back like driftwood in a current, and never again should they come near that spot once they had been swept past it.

Not with an army, but with a small scouting party should they reach it, a long, long time after all was lost, when all the cinders had gone cold.

Maedhros had come, and because he had insisted on surveying the field himself, Maglor would not be dissuaded from following him, and at last they took Amras and Darling with them, not even because they were the quickest, but because they were at present the only ones fit to go.

So it came to pass that Maedhros pulled the crown out of the long-congealed gore much like he once plucked it from his father's ashes. There were some golden wires still sticking out of the gunk – were it not for the scattered and bent metal adornments, even he could not have told Fingon's remains from the general muck of the battlefield – So thoroughly had they trampled him, looking to erase all trace of him from this world.

To that day, Maedhros had been convinced that he had wept his last on the slopes of Thangorodrim, but it is not for nothing that the events of that rueful day would come to be known as the Battle of the Unnumbered Tears – and the allusion to the words of Mandos would not be lost on the ones who orchestrated the assault.

Clutching blood-caked baubles to his face, his sword dropped forgotten in the mud, he who thought he had little left to lose found that there was much more of him left to break than he ever knew, and he was left alone with his tattered cloak blowing in the wind, a miserable, bent figure kneeling amid the desolation. He had no words left for this though, no lamentations – those should later be left to his brother, but not right now, not as he stood there, just as speechless, hands trembling as he surveyed the wide killing field.

Amras for his part said nothing, and so it was left to Darling to be the first one to regain her bearings, though for all that she would deny it, she least of all would forget the cold fear that this sight struck into her heart, and realizing perhaps more than ever before the limits of her own pride, she wanted to be gone from this dreadful scenery most of all: "We found what we came for. It's time now that we _leave._ This is a wide open plain, and seeing this, I find it difficult to believe that there's any survivors left to look for."

"How can you say that..?" replied Maglor, his famed voice for once too weak for this too have been much of an accusation. "We can't just leave them all for the crows."

"We must."

Maedhros. He had forced himself to his feet, and banished everything from his face but a bone-deep, sober weariness. He went to pick up his blade, "Our sister is right. We're too exposed here, we need to go before the enemy sends out patrols to sweep the plain for stragglers."

Stragglers.

That is what they had become.

**Third Act, Ninth Scene**

For a time, Celegorm knew nothing but pain and the memory of pain, and the vague notion of something important left unfinished – so when he first did manage to get a hold of solid strands on consciousness, his first instinct was to pull himself right to the surface, and straight out from under the covers he couldn't remember pulling over himself, striving to get a solid read on his surroundings – but like a garland of light studded with glimmering jewels, the hearths of pain lit up one by one as soon as he tried to move, and he found himself thrown straight back onto his the sheets, gritting his teeth even from the effort required to force his eyes open.

Immediately, he found a pair of long-fingered hands flying to his shoulders, readjusting the blankets right away, and a practiced, soothing tone of voice he had not heard in ages.

"Shh, it's alright. Easy, brother. Everything is all right."

As soon as he could bid his silver eyes to focus, he was met with the sight of Maglor and the Missus, the former bent over him and the latter close by, looking more obviously worried next to her husband's calm resignation. Her sword arm was still in a sling, having proven softer than whichever beast she had been trying to crack open.

Behind them was a wooden wall, but a window must have been close by, for it was light, and he could smell the open country, vast green lands of grass far from the stony slopes of the northern lands he last recalled – he could pick up notes of grass and pollen and summery sweetness, but what could have been a relief tasted only of defeat.

"What the- Where _are_ we?"

"Amon Ereb, one of Caranthir's old strongholds. It's where he's been staying with Amras since the Dagor Bragollach. You were wounded and we had to fall back."

At that, chunks of Memory came rushing back, and sparked again attempts at motion: "Those wretched traitors-"

"Peace. They're dead and gone. I slew their leader myself. Stay in bed please, or you'll reopen your wounds."

"Everyone-"

"They're fine. None of us escaped unscathed, but you probably got it the worst. Curufin might be left with a few scorch marks, but he's already back on his feet."

"-but the battle-"

"Lost. Utterly and completely. Even if you could stand right now, there would be nothing left for you to do."

"...I see." For once, he finally did lie still, and made no more attempts to rise up. He merely stared right at the ceiling with wide gray eyes, his numerous silver braids spilled out all around him, now all somewhat loose and disorderly.

Seeing that he had given up on struggling, Maglor chose this moment to rummage around in a bag at his side. "This is very nearly the last of our miruvor, so please drink up."

Observing him from the side, his Dearest found in herself a great admiration for his quiet gentleness in these desperate times – without doubt she could see the proof of his long years of experience in looking after his younger relatives, how he must have surely helped to look after his brothers when they were younger, and she understood more than ever why they all respected him though he didn't quite share their wild rambunctiousness – if it had fallen to Maedhros to be the disciplinarian, especially now when they were long since parted from their parents, it was the Minstrel who had taken it upon himself to be the understanding one and perhaps speak such quiet wisdom as their mother would surely have commended, and she was struck by his particular worth all over again like she only could have been in this dark abyss that their world had been plunged in regardless of the sun that was still cruelly blaring on outside – and for that alone did she not regret the ardous journey that had brought her to these dreadful shores. When she was sure that he'd finished tending to his brother, her good hand sought quietly and discreetly for one of his, receiving his touch with endless gratitude when he squeezed her right back, faintly first, and then with desperation.

**Third Act, Tenth Scene**

This time, it took much, much longer for any news to make it through.

What few scouts they could spare returned empty-handed, the best channel of communications they could hope for were lukewarm trade relations with nearby Nandorin communities who only received travelers now and then or, more often now, refugees.

Trade routes had collapsed.

Himring the Ever-Cold was probably stocked with orcs by now, their beloved things and places throw out, torn down or befouled.

Civilization as they knew it had all but ceased to exist – it could well be that there were some pockets remaining, some of the hidden realms, perhaps Nargothrond, maybe Turgon's stronghold, most certainly Doriath unconcerned behind the girdle of their wizard-queen while all else sunk into the flames, but for the most part, Beleriand was become the backyard of Morgoth, and well-nigh all that lived there strained and suffered under his weighty yoke.

And perhaps that could have been changed – once upon a time, it might even have been changed _by them. _But not anymore – if they ever had a chance, they had sorely missed it.

Their might was broken, their armies fallen, their strongholds taken. Once they commanded massive far-reaching influence, now, they were reduced to a molten remnant of the host they had first arrived it, reduced almost exclusively to what remained of their Noldorin followers, all shut up in this fortress or wandering in the land around it. They were tolerated, they might even hold their own for a while against diffuse enemy patrols or even small concerted efforts, but they were at best a vestigal city-state cramped in what was once but the least and furthest reach of Caranthir's sprawling kingdom.

There was always someone in the stronghold – Usually Maedhros or Thargelion's former ruling pair – but the need to be working, as well as the need for work to be done increasingly scattered the brothers around the nearby woodlands in their various pursuits.

Mighty Lords they were once, but no no more – Commanders at best; The fortress had stone foundations and wooden towers, large halls that were armories, stores and workshops at once. Maedhros strictly refused the nobles' suites, choosing instead to grant his married brothers some nominal minimum of a homestead. He stayed with the others in what was yet another of the garrison's quarters if marginally less cramped, though at any given time, some of them would be out under the leaves (most often Amras) or in a cot by the workshop (usually Curufin), and seldom were they all in the fortress at the same time, let alone at rest.

Though they were princes, the spartan accommodations weren't a burden on them, for many days of their youth had they spent out in the wilderness, in various inns across Valinor or in some apprentices' quarters at Aule's halls. Dearest had been a commoner to begin with; Her parent's whole apartment in the attic of their library had been scarcely bigger than the entirety of the suite she now shared with Maglor; They had been quite content with it, and a librarian's apartment in Valinor was hardly worse than a nobleman's suite in Ennore. The difference would have been the greatest for Sweetie, though she seldom complained, and Caranthir did his best to provide her with what few luxuries he could scrap together without taking anything away from his brothers. He seemed angrier about it than she ever did. Darling by contrast was hardy and surely used to simplicity from their travels, but it was one thing to travel as an incognito noblewoman or a journeying artisan of her own volition, and another to be forced into humbler means by circumstance. It chipped at her pride, and set her on edge, which was helped little by the fact that her husband was much the same, and it became none too unusual for one of the pair to exile themselves to the forge after a loud and conspicuous row. Sometimes he ceded the room in mockery calling her a spoiled diva, other times he claimed it for himself in brazen pride.

You could tell that they were having a particularly bad day when she called him by his old quenyan mother-name. It wasn't just that he preferred to proudly wear the one shared with and given by his father; Nerdanel's chosen apellation for him had always embarassed him a little, and ever since he passed toddlerhood, allowed only Nerdanel to use it, which meant that she'd mostly addressed him as such when she was teasing or scolding him, and perhaps during a few secret heart-to-heart talks that were now barbed in hindsight with her perceived betrayal. At some point he had apparently extended such privileges to his wife, who had thus far been wise enough not to abuse it in polite company, for even now that he was nearing his quadruple digits, a particularly well-timed, emphatic 'Atarinke!' at the end of a scathing remark could still bring a furious blush to his cheeks, where it would be pointedly evident due to his light complexion.

Sweetie couldn't stand this at all, nor the thick air in general, and often walked around the fortress and its outskirts trying her best to make sure everyone was at some baseline semblance of alright, which extended to their retainers and followers too, and when she grew exhausted of this, she would plant herself at Caranthir's side and plop her arms around him, for all that their retreat and fall from glory had made him moodier than ever. She understood _him_ well enough, even if the whole world around her seemed to have gone mad around them, and he often responded by seizing her just a little bit too tightly and resting wordlessly in her arms.

She dared not approach Maedhros when he was taking up space in a corner of the armory, as he often did these days when he wasn't training or being consulted in matters of leadership. Whenever he spoke, all deferred to him and a great many sensible judgements came from his mouth, but the taste of defeat was like sand in his throat.

Amras kept to himself outside most of the time, he was most often seen leading against walls or trees, but proved very skilled at making himself _un_seen, taking over most of the work to do with scouting and keeping watch.

But in truth many in their camp felt the same dull, ubiquitous frustration.

In their youth the brothers had known only one outlet for it: Work, work work! The running of this one fortress which they still held, and the managing of this one vaguely circumscribed patch of land was still something within their control. It was still in their grasp to simply keep living, to procuse food and tools and safety that before would have been subsidiaries of higher purpose.

Their entire universe seemed to have contracted to the hill of Amon Ereb, and the precarious homeostasis it contained – Of the surrounding world, they should hear very little, often just pointless rumors like something about Thingol's famed minstrel and loremaster having been missing for a while. Dearest remembered this 'Daeron', if only faintly, a hint of his outline and manner but not his face – she alone had gone with Maglor and Maedhros to that great feast of Fingolfin's a long, long time ago, back when that elf himself still walked these shores. They had tried in vain to persuade their brothers (or Darling) to come, but in the end there was an unspoken gladness between them precisely because they had _not_ brought the more quarrelsome specimens.

At first there was much confusion both among Indis' and Miriel's descendants as to why the King of Doriath saw it fit to send his minstrel of all people, but soon it had become apparent that Thingol was mocking them. With some fondness Dearest the shamed, open-mouthed expression on her husband's face and his little huffish indignant sound he'd produced when he saw that Sinda performing, finding himself surpassed for the first time since he had been a boy - for a moment, he couldn't help the proud offense that his wife had rather come to expect from Celegorm, Curufin or Feanor himself, though he should quickly regain his bearings and, ever Nerdanel's son, conducted himself admirably enough in the end, to the point of conducting some stilted conversations about technique, though for most of the return trip, Dearest has playfully teased him about 'having a prince's ego after all' . Looking back now, those days seemed like relics from a distant country that she could never return to, nearly as unattainable as her content childhood in Valinor – The dreamy girl she once was might have actually cared where this Daeron could have run off to and why.

Now she still told tales as she had on the hill of himring, but more than that she was a taskmaster, and steeled enough now as a fighter that Maedhros had her conducting some of the regular drills. She no longer knew or cared if that qualified her as any sort of 'lady'.

When she did rest, she tried to time it so as to pick the same intervals as Maglor, but he could go longer without it than she, though she couldn't say if this was yet another oddity of his father's blood or just good evidence that he pushed himself harder, or that he had more cause for despair driving him on. Should she find him it would be a peerless treasure to slip with him under the sheets, shadow his limbs with her own and cease all the sysyphean working and doing of the day without the dark thoughts of defeat immediately taking their place. They were not chased away completely, but the warmth was a comfort, and the promethean heat of life was ever so strong within him.

Even when she first saw him, she was intrigued by what it might mean to take someone so _real_, so vibrant for her own, to hold someone thus made of sharper lines and brighter colors; Now in this distant, unreal world so far from all she had known, his undeniable presence was her anchor.

Sometimes, when he was half asleep and unguarded, she could sense an inkling of the ceaseless melodies ever burning through his mind – Dirges, Laments, Threnodies, Elegies and Requiems – In all the hundred years they'd been together she'd had ample time to learn every word for every kind of song or poem and name them all when she encountered them, though as of late she had only had cause to use the words pertaining to the sad ones. He found it hard to find the happy ones even when Maedhros asked him to, making again and again the request for a particular melody from their childhood days in Valinor that for reasons known only to himself held some special significance – Though Dearest had long guessed that it reminded him of Fingon.

Out of love for his brother Maglor tried his best to make it happy song, but it became a sad one halfway through, and there were tears unnumbered indeed.

But Dearest did not much begrudge her cosmos of sad songs – when she thought of the outside world, and how it might one day come back to lay its claim on them, and what she might have to do then, when she thought of Morgoth and Sauron, and of the Silmaril – the one in Doriath, the glimmering, shimmering, glittering maddening Silmaril and its sharp radiance calling out – then she began to think that she could spent all eternity just minding the daily affairs of Amon Ereb as it was now, and count herself most gratefully content.

* * *

I hope the sword thing wasn't so extra, but let's say that weapons with long, roundabout histories are an honored franchise tradition at this point.


	5. Falling Action

The tricky part is when the fault was both in our stars ~and~ in ourselves.

* * *

_Listen to the wind blow_

_Down comes the night_

_Break the silence_

_Damn the dark_

_Damn the light_

_Listen to the wind blow_

_Watch the sun rise_

_Running in the shadows_

_Damn your love_

_Damn your lies_

_And if you don't love me now_

_You will never love me again_

_I can still hear you saying_

_You would never break the chain._

* * *

**Fourth Act, First Scene**

For a good thirty years of the sun, nothing happened.

Time simply kept passing.

In the stronghold of Amon Ereb and the surrounding woodlands, life simply continued, like the trees had kept growing and the rivers had flowed onward. Life there had its struggles, as it did in all Beleriand, but it was far from insufferable, and compared to all that plagued the thralls of Morgoth to the north, a free and well-defended community under the trees would have been counted as downright blissful – on a purely material level, the Sons of Feanor and their remaining followers were no worse off than the Nandorin communities in their immediate surroundings, some might say better, if they failed to featured in that the Green-Elves simply valued different things.

The brothers themselves now spent much time wandering out in the green lands under the sun in well-used leather-armor that they resembled wandering bandits, woodsmen or forest-rangers more than they remotely recalled the likeness of princes.

Amras, Maedhros and Caranthir were, of course, positively covered in freckes. But Maglor, too, had sprouted a faint, light brown-ish smattering centered around his nose. Celegorm had them up and down his arms in an unusual light gray shade that matched his silver hair. Even Curufin was sporting a few, much to his annoyance – This had occurred before, once upon a number of particularly warm and picturesque Valinorean summers, resulting in some measure of good-natured teasing from Nerdanel, about how he did get a little bit from her side of the family after all. Back then he had enjoyed her affection far more than he let on, but now, the memory was most unwelcome.

The wives sported instead an olive-hued sort of tan save for Dearest, who did not adapt much to the sun at all. Only Sweetie remotely bothered with some semblance of noble trappings, and that, mostly out of habit and the awareness that the soldiers expected to see her with pearl-studded hairclips and shiny robes and would have taken it as a bad sign if she ever stopped.

Their days of grand lordship were long past, but most of the speaking peoples that ever lived were not lords either and the great majority bore it well enough. The surrounding land was rich and green and their brushes with the enemy seemed largely coincidental and irregular. They encountered patrols of men or orcish marauders, but little in the way of concerted efforts.

It seemed to them as if the enemy were distracted or his gaze focused elsewhere, and that would not have been far from the truth – never would he forget the door slammed in his face, or his burning envy towards all who have ever produced marvelous works or independent thoughts of which his barren jealousy could only make mockeries, but more keenly than the bruises left upon his ego by the cunning words of the elder brother did he feel the wounds inflicted by the strong arm of the younger, and more than broken scattered outlaws who should indeed never trouble him again did he fear the might of Turgon, whose stronghold was still hidden, intact, and by his own foresight appointed to undo him. His bestiary of creatures had come within a hair's breath of relieving him of those worries, but this was foiled by the defiance of a single man, and on that more recent mockery was his attention now bent – thirty years or so would, to an Elf, appeared as a practically arbitrary span of time, no less so than three years, or three hundred or three and a half months, but for a child of Men, it was about just enough time to grow to manhood and live a short, nasty, brutish life that was bungled in all ways. Though they were alive at the same time, none of the House of Feanor's sad crumbling remnant ever met this Man, nor were they aware of his existence, any more than the Man himself ever caught a glimpse of his more well-adjusted cousin, who would turn out to be the one that Morgoth should _really_ have been worried about, but had they ever met him, they might perhaps have felt some strange sense of kinship with him, for he too preferred defiant action over waiting, and like him, they held themselves to be _wronged_, as well as _blood-stained, sons of ill-fate _– but he never came to once to Amon Ereb, and instead, Morgoth should spent his brief sour life to unmake the remaining hidden realms one by one, and only by many indirect turns would the brothers again become caught up within that web of causality.

For now, while their foe was otherwise occupied, the Sons of Feanor and their followers were left only with the torments that they had brought with them in their retreat, the grief for numerous fallen comrades, trusted retainers, underlings of invaluable skills, and esteemed friends, of which Maedhros' grief for his friend the High King was not the least, and the humiliation of defeat, on which Celegorm well-near choked. From the first he clamored that Doriath should be assailed, now, _soon_, while they still had the troops to do it and the heart to face them, and first Maedhros said nothing to it, waiting for his brother's rage to pass like a storm even as some of their soldiers quailed from the enormity of what he proposed, but every time he got a chance, or whenever his ever-fouler mood dropped below a certain threshold, Celegorm made his case relentlessly, and found ever newer reasons, some of them even fair-seeming. Had not Doriath ever treated them with haughty impertinence? Had not Doriath branded them banned their language, and barred them passage in all their times of need? Had the Sindar not sat idle, enjoying the protection provided by their strongholds without sending more than two bowmen of their own, ever profiting from their sacrifices while treating them with mockery? Had they not reached out their hand towards that which was their by right?

He never ceased to bring it up – _Ceterum Censeo Catharginem Esse Delendam. _

Usually such discussions were cautiously silenced by talk of the wizard-queen, whose might stayed even the spider, and indeed the wizard-daughter, who had however briefly overcome the Dark One with her charms and made Sauron himself submit to her in humiliation.

However, one day it occurred to him to respond to that with an invocation of the vow they had all shared: "Did we not swear that no Valar would keep them from us? What are one and a half Maiar to that?"

And that horrible thought, once said out loud, could not be gathered up and excised from the air it had polluted with its taint, or any of the minds in which its awareness now burned.

Maglor must have sensed it too, and only called more attention to it in his vain attempt to stuff the lightning back into the bottle:

"Brother. Consider what you are saying. We vowed that we would take the Silmarils back from our enemies – but you are suggesting is the opposite: That we make them our enemies simply because they have a Silmaril."

"Is it? Is it? They _are_ our enemies, they have always been! In that way, they're no different from the orcs of Morgoth-"

"The Iathrim are _**not**_ the orcs of Morgoth."

All fell silent as the stern voice of Maedhros suddenly cut through the din, when he appeared suddenly in the door arch like a ghostly apparition.

Perhaps Celegorm allowed himself to be silenced for now because the wizard-princess still lived; Some part of him preferred not to destroy her with his own hands, if only because that would have been the last and final admission of his hopeless defeat. Death would only send her further beyond his reach.

But Maedhros' reproach had only silenced the quarrel, and not the question behind it that now burned ever more within all of their minds – and Darling Steel-Gleam, having come out of her quarters at the sound of the commotion, did not fail to mark this, nor did Sweetie and Dearest, who had been working in a nearby room, and listened with sad trepidation – that is, Dearest did, and she still felt sympathy for Celegorm in his struggle with defeat, granting that he was only saying what all of them were thinking, for even in his bravado was the admission of defeat: The jewel in Thingol's hoard might still seem attainable now, but the ones remaining in Morgoth's crown might have slipped beyond their reach forever when their armies were broken, and she feared to consider what this might mean.

Sweetie, for her part, was leaning against the wall, trying very hard to convince herself that the leaden dread she now felt was not the exact same as the feeling she once had in Alqualonde.

She couldn't shake the notion that something direful was going to happen.

It was no comfort when her elder law-sister saw it fit to place a hand on her shoulder, in truth, she was startled quite a bit. "Are you alright, sister?"

"Y-Yes, thank you Lady… I was just… lost in thought."

But when Caranthir returned a few hours later with a large pile of firewood, Sweetie refused to part from him and insisted with uncharacteristic stubbornness on busying herself in the same room as he, to the point that he got somewhat annoyed by it and gruffly asked her what the matter was. But she could not put it into words, as if she was beset by some diffuse, lingering fear that could be be assuaged by the feeling of him still warm and whole under her fingertips.

He bothered not to extract explications from her and chose to placate her and be done with it, stating that she could stay as much as she wanted as long as she did not get in the way of his work. Once the firewood was taken care of he proceeded to handle the records and book-keeping, in which Maglor's lady assisted him. As she herself once pointed out, Maedhros _did_ have more experienced bookkeepers and there would have been even more of them among Caranthir's followers whose fallen realm had chiefly won its wealth from trade, however, those more experienced subjects of theirs were all dead now, fallen in the Nirnaeth, meaning that Dearest's experience in minding the ledgers of the Gap had come to be relevant again.

Sweetie for her part leaned against her husband from the back as he sat there working, and placed her head on his shoulders, offering to help now and then whenever something needed to be fetched, preferring to make herself useful rather than bother their already short-staffed servants many of which were spread throughout the nearby woods.

She had never had sought training in he arts of foresight, as it never held her interest – what good was it to see the shadow standing behind her, if such knowledge would not help her escape from under its scythe? Much rather would she prefer to remain ignorant in her bliss until its strike connected – but some in her family had learned that skill and proven moderately gifted; They were, after all, the sort of noble house whose daughters would be presented as potential mates to a prince. Right now, she was really, really hoping that she did not take after their side of the family.

**Fourth Act, Second Scene**

Given that they spent much of their early history under conditions of either constant light or constant darkness, it might not surprise anyone that elves don't really have much of day-night cycle. To the younger peoples, a blue sky was idyllic – to Dearest, it was but a marginally dimmer version of the black void of night. It was surely nice and warm and all that, but the Two Trees, while they still shone, used to light up the entire sky in gold or silver. She had never so much as seen the stars before she took to journeying with Maglor and his family.

So it was not at all strange for her to retire to her rooms at high noon after a long day's work. If anything, it seemed rather more practical, since the orcs shunned the light and were unlikely to strike during the day so long as the cloud cover was more patchy than continuous.

Their suite was on the very top floor of the central building of Amon Ereb's fortifications, right across from the one shared by Caranthir and his lady. Dearest was barely up the stairs when she sensed that she would not be alone here, and indeed, found Maglor seated by the hearth, thumbing through what she at first believed to be some of his notes of miscellaneous lyrics.

He was looking her way when she came in, but there was enough surprise left in his expression to suggest that he had been immersed enough to notice her much later than she has noticed him – that in itself would have been rare if not unheard of, but it did not occur to her how to explain the sheepish look that replaced it until he spoke at last: "Excuse me, my Dearest, I owe you an apology – I read your notes. I was looking for one of mine, and by the time I realized that this must be your work, I – I just couldn't put it down..."

Dearest broke into a smile right away to let him know that he need not worry, faint and rarely-seen thought it was in these uncertain days. "I would be supercilious indeed if I were to pass up the critique of the world's best poet."

"Second-best." he corrected, though she has succeeded in summoning some wan echo of a smile to his face. She counted this at a victory at the time, but in later days she would think back to these days and recall how _alive_ he had still looked then despite the melancholy tint that suffused most of what he did.

"Technicality. I'd count myself blessed if I could be even the hundredth-best storyteller in this world..." she said, because, as a denizens of those ancient times, she could not picture a world inhabited by millions and billions. "But honestly, what do you think?"

"It's some of your best material yet. But I don't recall any of these from your last reading..."

He held out the sheets in her direction so she could see which one she referred to. (Doing so did not require her to lean forward, or even to cross the room)

"Oh- these ones..." she said, halting suddenly with sharp realization. "They're not precisely… encouraging. I mostly just wrote these for myself. I doubt your brothers would wish to hear them, let alone our followers..."

All the brief, borrowed levity had evaporated from the room.

Maglor's expression was somber, betraying just a bit of a tight, pained look. "Is it because of that… recurring theme I seem to have noticed?"

He fingered through the bundles of parchment one by one, elucidating their contents: "A girl pledges herself to the service of a sorcerer in exchange for his aid in healing a young man she was fond of of a crippling wound. He recovers, but they he goes on to wed the girl's best friend, while she is stuck doing the sorcerer's bidding. She comes to realize that her real wish might not have been to help her friend, but to have his gratitude and love, and so she grows resentful and bitter..."

Placing the sheets on a nearby table, he points out another bunch: "A lady had captured the princess of a nearby kingdom as part of a dispute with its king. She tells the girl nothing of her lineage and keeps her imprisoned. One day the lady suspects that the girl is lying to her about trying to escape. She lays a spell on the tower such that no one with a dishonest heart may leave it. But the young girl never lied, so she could leave the tower without problem. The mighty lady, however, did lie, so she had to remain trapped in the tower for eternity… imprisoned by her own words.

That's what these are all about, aren't they?" still, he skirted around the heart of the manner, touching only its periphery – and yet she thought that it touched him more than it touched her, so far should it be from her to poke around the exposed core of rawness hanging in the air between them. She would have spared him, but it was him who insisted on insisting, perhaps as a means of ripping off the bandaid and having it over with: "Is that how you feel? Trapped by your own words? Trapped, because you have bound yourself to me?"

"_No!"_ she cried, almost immediately "Perish the thought! Forget that nonsense right away, I couldn't bear for you to think that even for a moment. That's not what it's about."

She was still going to answer, but she thought well about how to do it:

"Its's just that… I have been thinking. That thing you said about making enemies… I couldn't stop thinking about it. It's often said that many of this world's faults are down to people wanting more than what is their lot. I would not be here if I believed in that sort of thing, and I still don't, that it is anyone's right to tell us what our lot is. There is nothing more natural than _wanting_, and we should be the same as shades the moment we did no longer _want. _You could take the noblest person in the world, truly, wholly willing to go through whatever pains without any hope of reward, and even they would not be able to go with nothing to sustain them, at least not for long… It needn't even be a great, big want. Just a small, simple thing that brings you a bit of joy and happiness among the shifting tides of this dark world. I find that what people really want are such small things. Besides, some things… some things, I believe, are worth a relentless pursuit. But what's happening in these stories is that the people in them don't really know what they want. Maybe they really want one thing, but they tell themselves that they want another, out of pride perhaps, or because they thought that this second thing would by itself grant them the first… And that, mainly, is what I meant for these stories to speak about."

But he gratefully refused the deflection she had offered him:

"And then, there's this one… the one about an _enchanted jewel_. A work of great virtue, which is said to grant its owner's every wish. Or, as you might put it, whatever _seems_ like the owner's greatest wish."

"Impossible no doubt. Science-Fiction. I worked in much of what I picked up over the years, but If I ever showed this to Curufin, he would probably go into a rant about how inaccurate it is and explain how it doesn't work that way."

"The smith-craft might be inaccurate, but it's not a blueprint you're drawing, but a_ story_. Those have their own kind of sense to them, don't they? And at the heart of _th__is_ story is the way that the jewel twists every single wish to serve it's own purposes. The heroine of the last chapter only manages to break the cycle by making the one truly selfless wish: For the jewel to disappear, even if it means that she would not be able to reclaim anything she lost, or gain what she sought for when she began her quest… Seems like a cruel world to live in, where every slight bit of wanting is punished so harshly. Forgive me if I think that this doesn't seem to fit much with what you just explained to me."

"What I think the world ought to be, and how it really is are two pairs of boots. We would seem to live exactly in that sort of cruel world, if it really is like you once said – that we're being punished. That we should lose everything just because someone somewhere finds a modicum of pride in our intentions – because we wanted to be free."

"But we didn't just _want_, my Dearest Heart, we _killed_."

"We never meant to!"

"But still we did. Still, people are dead because of us. They might return – they might have returned already – but they will bear the mark of the suffering we inflicted upon them forever, as well as the marks of fighting us in return. And we led others down this path."

"My love, I know that we are far from blameless – you and me both – but we couldn't possibly deserve _this._ _Nobody_ deserves this. And even if we _did_, I doubt that this would be the case for everyone who died – Fingon and Aredhel, for example. Or all those Naugrim and Atani, who had nothing to do with any of this… For Eru's sake, they released _Morgoth_. _He_ wasn't cast into the void forever – and you might have your faults – I out of anyone would know – but surely, you are not so bad as _Morgoth_. Our people deserve better. _You_ deserve better."

Her speech had become quite impassioned, and her eyes shone with the famed boldness of her people as much as those of any death-marked warrior about to face the hordes of darkness.

"I would hold to this and stand as much if you were nothing to me, for I hold your brother to be my rightful king – No, more than that. I have known him many centuries and we've been living in close quarters ever since the Sudden Flame, almost a hundred years now. We are practically family, and I have learned much from him. You two probably know me better than my own parents at this point – at least the person I am now. And I hold you both to be the noblest people I have ever known – you've cut yourselves off from the powers that would offer you any reward, and hold yourselves damned already, but still you remain valiant. Still you pressed on for the sake of all of us… I have said that none could live indefinitely on goodwill alone, but you come as close to it as any being of flesh could hope. I would stand by the rights of yourself and your family if you were a stranger to me, but as it stands, you are not, and that makes it much, much easier…

Because here's a selfish wish of my own: I simply do not wish to be parted from you. You realize that, if you really are bound for the void, death would sever us forever. I would come to Mandos, and your lot would be unspeakably heavier than mine – and we'd be apart. Ennore is the one place remaining where we can be together. That alone is why I would never wish to leave it, not if we were reduced to the life of beggars!"

There was a part of Maglor that wished that she hadn't said that, like this moment was destined to haunt him like a recurring refrain in the light of what was due to come after.

"You might think so now, and perhaps you are right at the moment, but I'm afraid that we might come to deserve what is coming to us by the time that it finds us… Your impression was quite right. We _have_ trapped ourselves with our own words. Maedhros and I have mulled it over time and time again, looking for any possible reason why Celegorm must be wrong, but we can't find any. He's exactly right, though he might not realize what exactly his words entail… The conditions apply. We _are_ obliged to assail Doriath – and I don't know what is going to happen once we run out of reasons to delay. It's exactly like in your stories, you got that exactly right. What we wanted… what we really wanted... was to defy Morgoth, and to live free on our own terms. But we did not swear to live free, or to defy Morgoth, or even to avenge grandfather, oh no! We said we would get back the Silmarils. Our property. Our stolen, trampled pride. It seemed to be the same thing. Defy Morgoth. Get back the Silmarils – _Morgoth_ had them. And since he is the greatest of all beings that dwell in this world, we said that none of them should stay us. None lesser than him, nor even he, nor the other Valar. We decreed that they should not constrain us, not all at, nor for any reasons, not even for the worthiest cause. To say that they should not deny us this was to say that they should deny us nothing. It seemed the same thing… so, without thinking, without even a moment's hesitation, I leapt up alongside my brothers and-"

Dearest had heard her husband's voice faltering many times, sometimes with passion, sometimes with lament, sometimes even out of sheer inspiration – but never once before in fear or distress.

He covered his eyes with his hand and let himself half sink onto the table, with the elbow he'd propped up on it as his only support. His hair spilled onto the table and down the edge of it like a dark inky waterfall.

But it was not Morgoth that he feared, or even the void. He had spat in the faces of both those dangers long ago. To be cowed was not in his nature, nor that of any of his brothers. The stream of his words was quenched by a much deeper horror provincial only to the mighty: The fear of what else he might find himself compelled to do in the coming days.

His Dearest had never seen him like this; she darted to his side with a speed and momentum that almost resembled that of a freefall, and yet she did not dare touch him even once she was seated beside him.

"Even if I had known that I would be accepting a life of endless fighting, I would have done just the same. _That_ does not frighten me. If it was just my own life at stake, I would gladly give it. For my father and my brothers? In a heartbeat. Where they go, I go – that one chain, I could not, would not ever break. But so much has changed… I never expected that we would lose father so soon after arriving here. I never expected the sun, or the after-comers, or that the King of Doriath would demand one of the Silmarils for a bride-price, let alone that the princess and her lover would succeed in claiming it. It seems to me now that all we had done to break the bonds that held us had only led us to ensnare ourselves in webs of our own making, and the more we struggle, the more hopeless our entrapment..."

In the end it was him who bridged the gap between them, breaking from his heavy reverie to seize her by the shoulders, his grip just a little bit too tight. "Damn the dark! Damn the light! We have cut ourselves lose from both, so we can't expect recourse from either, and when our time comes, our restless, wandering spirits shall have nowhere left to go...

I have dreamt of the waters rising and black tides, a thousand little dark rivulets at first, and then the flood, the vengeful water, crying out for recompense for the bodies we threw down to it at Alqualonde. I was standing in the ruins of what looked to be our old fort on the Hill of Himring, and I looked on and watched as everything around me was swallowed beneath the waves. But there were no orcs there, nor any other living thing, not you, not any of my little brothers, nor even Maedhros. I was completely and utterly alone. Only me, far and wide, as if I were the last breathing creature left on the face of Arda. I have grown up with six brothers, and we always stuck close by each other – Whatever anyone said about us, whatever became of us, come hell or high water, at least I always had _them_. I have _never_ been alone in all my life..."

His face went through a series of expressions that even he couldn't match words to; Before she knew it, he was weeping into her chest. And though she very much wanted to extend her arms and hold him, she sat there leaden and silent, down to the smallest, slightest finger refusing to be lifted.

No amount of touch could have chased that horrific awareness out from deep in their bones.

**Fourth Act, Third Scene**

Even stripped of all rich silks, without all her baubles and splendor, or more than a wooden roof above her, Darling had to think of herself as a proud lady, _especially_ now that the title would have seemed ever more void and tenuous without her insistence.

When all else failed, she still had her noble upbringing, the prideful bearing that had been impressed on her from birth, and that, at least, none could take from her, not if they were to pull off her very skin. But it was getting harder and costlier to maintain herself that comforting thought when it clashed ever so badly with the reality of their lives; The suite Maedhros had granted them reeked of his brotherly pity for Curufin who had not taken his fall from grace any better than his lady or Celegorm, and having that room to themselves did little to change that she spent most of her hours replacing broken household tools and mending armor forged in sunnier days with what little inferior materials they could salvage here, and not even all her skill could spin straw into gold. She might have been more motivated to the challenge if her husband had been better company, but he fared no better than her.

Both of them had a few instances where they'd caught themselves yelling for their son to ready something out of habit, and when they remembered that he was not there, all the conversation between them would be spoiled for the day.

Her cooler, more pragmatic instincts told her that he was taking this badly – _very_ badly, and in part, that was also because he was a lot like her: He lacked his older brothers' nigh suicidal bravado, and saw further and clearer, with cooler eyes, just how ill their fortunes boded. Yet more _like_ his brothers than his lady, he still carried in himself the heat of passion, and under the surface, must have been agonizing over the truth he must have grasped as sure as she did, but could not, would not accept.

After so many centuries, Darling knew him well enough to peek through at least some of the cracks in his facade, enough so to suspect that what tormented him the most must be his final vow to his father, whose fulfillment was now far beyond reach, but whose obligations he still held to without question. Darling would have left herself open to dangerous miscalculations if she had underestimate the warm and fuzzy parts of her fondness for him, but from the beginning, she had made an effort to keep her eyes peeled for his flaws and exploitable weaknesses, not out of mistrust, but out of principle, to look out for herself lest she be fooled. Perhaps that was why she held his attention for longer than many tender maidens who could have been more easily snared. She had always known that he was in some ways a fool, and she knew that little reason ever tempered his boyish admiration for father, a great man no doubt, whom she had admired too, but long, long dead and gone for centuries now, crumbled to ash before the sun ever rose or the first Men ever stumbled into the land, and they had other problems now, which servings of humble pies and crow that had rendered her Lord Husband insufferable and bristly, and how they not? She didn't think that she would be much happier if he would take all this without complaint.

They had perhaps the cold tenacity to be satisfied in having escaped their lives where others had not, and thought themselves above the sentimentality that sometimes bothered his older brothers, but they had got themselves here by aiming ever higher, and once you made it to the peak, you never forget the view from the top.

In many ways, his fall had been much steeper than hers, since he was of royal blood.

He was a prideful lord, and that was a big part of how he impressed her once, riding up to her with his fancy thoroughbred stallion, but not stopping without having taken the opportunity to demonstrate his excellent horsemanship, every inch the son of a crown prince in dress and bearing. He had appealed to her own pride with his flattery and exuberant gifts – no, he had done more than that, much worse than he could have accomplished if he picked a simple fool for his mark, and overcome the very mind that had been looking out not to be moved so easily by tempting her with his surpassing skill and knowledge, and the smattering of family secrets that he only could reveal to one who would be ready to join his family.

She had liked that he was prideful, proud of heart and not just proud of titles. Glad was she when she was moved from her parent's abode far back in the administrative wing of the palace complex to some of King Finwe's fairest guest quarters, and gladder still had she left behind the promised lands of paradise to grasp a piece of dirt that would be truly her own, but now she regretted Himlad and Valinor both, and a bitterness gnawed at her that some might have ascribed to the curse of Alqualonde, though she would have denied it to the end no matter how convenient it should appear – of course, had this been the case, Darling herself would never have been able to tell the difference, but Doom or no Doom, she maintained that her thoughts would have been much the same: That she had signed up to be the wife of a prince, not just another knight at a lone, utilitarian stronghold. Better would she have done to warm the bed of some Dark Elf chieftain's son, for it appeared to her that she would have had everything she had now, without the taunting memory of ever having been a landed lady in Himlad, and mighty Lord's proud spouse in the caves of Nargothrond, or a princess consort in the bliss of Valinor, or being at all cost consigned to share in the bitter fate with a gaggle of dispossessed beggar princes who would never rise again.

Even among the ladies in this miserable fief, she could barely count herself the third. Thus far she had always been amicable with her law-sisters, as they each had her qualities, but thus far she had always easily thought herself their better and never felt that she had anything to envy from them.

Her own husband might have been one of the younger ones, but he always did have Feanor's favor, and she herself thought to have endeared herself to him both by helping him out in the forge, and by being the mother of his only grandchild, and thought herself fortunate to be one of the few to have the crown prince's ear.

But now he was long dead, and she was cooped up here with all his remaining sons, outranked by a baseborn girl and a feckless creature. Had she been wedded to the eldest she would surely have insisted on seniority just like she had when it came to the claim of their house as a whole, but she would have pulled out whichever cards would have granted her the spot at the top, titles and birth over commoners, and merit over some spoiled noble who couldn't fight – but she couldn't beat them both out. Maglor's lady had learned to fight from Maedhros, honed her skills beating down the many orcs that assailed Himring, and was popular with the soldiers, and Caranthir's wife was from a family more prestigious than her own, a descendant, it was said, of the second pair of elves to ever awaken, and one of the first-ever chieftains. And a chieftain he might still be, if he yet lived, ruling among the Avari, but some of his younger sons and grandchildren had come with Finwe, and ridden with him as his bannermen, so when he returned to Valinor and was crowned King there, he raised the chiefest among those followers to the ranks of Dukes and Princes, and from such a family came she who would be the younger sister of a Duchess if Caranthir had not made her the wife of a prince. She was indeed a very distant relation to Anaire the wife of Fingolfin, who had come from that same line's main branch, at least of the ones that had come to Valinor.

But even if Darling's palace scribe parents had been swapped for those of Anaire, she could not expect much hope from pulling rank, not to the grandsons of a simple broideress and the sons of a metalworker's daughter – The daughter of a metalworker honored and favored by Aule, perhaps, but one whose wayward grandchildren had then decided that they no longer bowed to the Valar, and had tried long to defend their claim against the brood of Ingwe Ingweron's own sister.

Maglor had practically followed family tradition by choosing a wife of common birth, and in a different way, so had Curufin: Darling (though he could hardly ever muster the braggart exuberance to call her that anymore) met him in a forge, wearing soot-stained apprentice clothing, and caught his attention by expressing how much she preferred royals-who-actually-do-something and asserted that her own loyalties were most certainly to the Crown Prince who was so thoroughly one of her own and labored ever to create great inventions for the good of the realm – back when she could still afford the luxury of opinions that did not serve to further her goals. Yes, it was flattery, but of the sort which she had actually believed. In general, many of those who had joined themselves to the Crown Prince's faction had been of the sort that still primarily saw themselves first as Noldor ot Tatyar rather than as Valinorean elves in general, which comprised both the very arrogant and the very individualistic, including many in the old guard who still remembered the stars.

There was a certain irony to that – Feanor had been born in Aman and had never seen Cuivenen, while his father, who _had_ known the dangers of the wider world, maintained to the end that going to Valinor had been a good idea. Though he had also swayed many of the younger individuals from the third and fourth generations who had never seen anything other than paradise nor heard the tales of horror and deprivation directly from their parents, most of those had been scared off by the crown prince's seditious tone and joined themselves to Fingolfin, save for the fiercest and most battle-hungry, and Darling supposed that later historians would count her among that second group. The ones who stayed, then, were largely those who had grown particularly fond of the Valar and Maiar, or those who had known nothing but Tirion and Valinor, but also spent long enough there to get rather attached to it, which ironically meant that many of them were from Feanor's own generation.

She had seen no contradiction in liking the crown prince, liking his son, and also liking what her association with them might do for her; She found it rather worth rejoincing then, that she found someone to the liking of both her heart and her ambitions.

Now of course she was beginning to wonder if it was nor rather Feanor who had _her_ under his thumb, utterly and completely. His grip on his sons, whom he had ample time to shape and mold since they were born, was so absolute that they could not escape it even centuries after he had fallen to ash. Only the oldest and the youngest had ever dared to criticise him to his face, while the next-youngest and second oldest would perhaps question him in silence - but Curufin in particular had never once defied him or spoken against him in even the slightest matter, still stuck in his shadow after all these years. Still Darling knew that if Feanor were still here, his compelling voice and fiery will right before her, she might have been talked into following him all over again…

But Curufin had no such power. Cunning words he had, but he didn't quite have the same sort of stage presence – which was probably why he always hid behind his brother Celegorm. Now _he_ certainly had some of that presence, she had seen that gift at work in Nargothrond, striking fear into a crowd of worthy warriors with but a declaration, but he had not inherited it in full in the vein of Maedhros, who, as a leader, might have been the only one of the bunch to ever surpass their old man – Curufin would have no luck talking _him_ into any sort of schemes.

But could Darling say that of herself? Or had not she, who fancied herself a robber of fools, not have been the most robbed, most deceived fool of them all, who had followed their grandiose promises only to end up here, stranded in the wilderness?

(But she was not, in fact, stranded, now was she? Doomed, perhaps, but she was not exactly trying to get back to Valinor, and she had sworn no oaths.

She would have followed her chosen house and rightful king to many places, not to the Everlasting Darkness.)

**Fourth Act, Fourth Scene**

One day, it all came to a head.

Curufin and his wife had the stronghold to themselves that day, or at least they thought they did, for most of the brothers were out in the woodlands – Darling likely picked this day for that exact reason, and that alone suggested than even then, she had not planned for the conversation's outcome, and expected a future where it would matter whether or not she embarrassed him in front of his brothers or followers, which he would most certainly have hated.

They were alone save for a skeleton screw left in place to ensure that the place was not plundered in their absence, and most of those were far from the forges where they were both hard at work.

No peerless marvels of surpassing worth and utility were being wrought here, just the all-too prosaic means to keep the settlement running, repairs and replacements to armor and weapons, parts for barrels and wagons and whatever else needed metal hinges, basic tools. It was only a slight exaggeration to say that they both could have done this in their sleep. While meditating? Certainly.

Curufin had made heaps of hammerheads, arrowheads and plowshares before he was tall enough to do so without standing on a stool or chair; Not scrap metal practice-pieces, but good quality, salable goods, not that there would ever have been the need to sell them back in Valinor, mostly they'd just hand them to whoever asked for them and content themselves with the bragging rights, it's not like there was any scarcity or difficulty involved with in obtaining the materials.

Darling had been nearly grown when she learned; She had to start a formal apprenticeship first – Her parents could have taught her a lot about secretarial work, but her main takeaway from it was that she was never terribly suited for it, though they had still maintained that she was undoubtedly their daughter, if she had picked any pursuit that required due diligence.

And diligently she did work, and she would have said that it was a matter of pride, but in truth the needs of survival had taught has that it was a frivolous luxury to regard anything as a triviality, but all the while they had been busied here for hours upon hours, very few words had passed between them, no shared complaints or half-baked plots or even novel ideas – even so, the silence could have been companionable in a grim, solemn and focused way, until she finally spoke:

"Isnt't anybody going to say it? Do I really have to do it myself?"

"Say what?!"

"I'm not sure if your brothers are going to want to hear this, but we can't win. With as few soldiers as we have left now, there's no way we can beat Morgoth, nor even Doriath. Event if it weren't for the Wizard-Queen we couldn't possibly assault Menegroth without taking heavy losses. It's utter suicide… Look, I'm sorry about your father, your grandfather and your jewels – and yours they are, to that I hold! – but we need to worry about ourselves right now. We need to pack up and go, and see if we can convince our bullheaded son to come with us."

All the while that she spoke, her husband appeared completely blindsided, like he was struggling or, increasingly, refusing to piece together what she meant, until she spelled it out altogether:

"We need to leave Beleriand, and we need to do it soon, before Morgoth gets around to finishing what he started. There's nothing left for us here."

Only then was he forced to believe that she had indeed meant what she appeared to mean. One might have expected him to be enraged, but he was, above all, stunned.

"Wife of mine, I must have misunderstood you. Could you clarify what you said?" spoke Curufin, his voice increasingly cold and scathing. Cause it _seems_ to me that we should just come crawling back to the Valar with our tails between our legs like a bunch of cowards. Is it that what you're trying to tell me?!"

"Of course not! We didn't cut ourselves free to bow down to anyone but ourselves and our own ever again. But the world's bigger than just Beleriand. We could go over the mountains, or depart to the South – " and there it was shown how the right word planted in the right place could sprout the bitterest thorns of division, even when those who heard them had themselves rejected their source outright – and if Melkor had thus snared the famously wilful Feanor, what hope was there for a palace scribe's daughter? "Remember that one time Morgoth said he'd let us go if we moved south?"

"He also promised us a Silmaril and hung my brother from a cliff face, in case you don't remember!"

"I'm not suggesting that we _treat_ with him, for Varda's sake!" She didn't know why she still invoked the Valar when she no longer worshiped them. It might have been habit, or the need for support in desperate times. "I'm just saying that it can't hurt to go where he won't be chasing us anytime soon. There should be no one down there but Men and Avari who have never seen our like and can't fathom our skill and power in a dream. They would practically beg us to be their lords, but even if they didn't, we could probably conquer the place with a few hundred warriors. We could be our own masters again as we were in Himlad – No playing nice with Orodreth or Turgon, no making sure that we only cut down trees on our side of the river lest we displease our Nandorin neighbors – we could lay claim to lands wealthier, greener and wider than ever before, with no one around to stop us from calling ourselves kings, and all we have to do is _**go **_before we're utterly destroyed here."

"Yeah, just one problem with that – I made an _unbreakable vow __on my father's deathbed. _It was the last he ever asked of me that I see this fight through to the end. You _knew_ the odds were against us, we were opposing _the Valar themselves_. I don't know why you would even consider that I would ever betray my family, but I won't, and neither will you, if your marriage vows were worth the breath that you said them with."

"Why not? You've betrayed everything else!" Looking back, this might have been when she passed the point of no return. "Since when do you care so much about foolish nonsense? You're choosing the oddest time to be a Martyr, my love. Then again, maybe if you'd discovered your inner shining knight of virtue just a little earlier, we might not have lost the battle, and with it our last chance to actually accomplish something here."

"Really? _Really? _You're actually going to argue that it's somehow my fault that those blasted Aftercomers betrayed us?"

"Treason has been the Dark One's oldest and most favored weapon. We should be fools if we did not plan to withstand it. And we could have. We were _close._ All it would have taken was just a few additional soldiers that could have charged ahead while we were tied down at the back – and we could have had them, too, if you and your brother hadn't gotten _handsy_ with the King of Doriath's prized daughter! You lost us Doriath, and you lost us Nargothrond as well. The only reason that your brother was able to scrounge up any allies at all is because Fingon and Turgon are both fools same as their father. Not that your brother's any better. From the beginning, he never played to win – giving away the crown, placing himself in harm's way as if to _prove_ something, playing nice wherever he could… and look at him now. King of _Nothing._ And so he will remain, for people rarely get in line to give you back what you cast away with your own hands. If you really wanted back the kingship or the Silmarils, you should have acted like it!

And oh, you murmured about it, but in the end you just stood by and followed your brother, because that's you are, _Atarinke_ – a follower. You followed your father, you follow your older brothers, you fancy yourself so clever, but haven't thought for yourself once in your life. Even that foolish, bullheaded son of ours stood up to us in the end. He could do it, but not you. Fool that you are!"

"Oh would that I had!" he spat, now _clearly_ incensed. "Would that I _had_ gotten 'handsy' with the princess! I was young and eager to win my father's favor by furthering his line, so I married as soon as I could. If I had waited, perhaps I could have been a king by now, but instead it appears that I'm stuck with a craven, faithless wife and her craven, faithless son! I should have taken the princess for myself rather than leaving it to Celegorm, but alas, there was you!"

"And you think you would have fared better? Oh dear, I hate to break it to you, but no one's going around calling you 'Curufin the fair.'"

"Shameless are you in changing your tune! Faithless you turn from our house when it stops being convenient for you! What a fairweather friend you turn out to be, faithless excuse for a wife. I seem to recall that you were quite enamored with the thought of seizing Nargothrond when you heard me say that I would make you Queen!"

"Indeed! And what I fool I have proved for it, what I fool I was that I ever believed you! Where's that throne you promised me? Where are our estates? Where's my Silmaril-studded bangle, Curufin? Go on? Where is it? Where's the _freedom_ we were supposed to find out here, locked in this pointless hopeless strife you won't abandon?"

"It's _not_ pointless. That half-wizard princess won't live forever. She's mortal now. We just need to wait her out, and then you'll see if I still feel like giving you anything-"

"Blah, blah, blah. Hot air. Empty words. I've heard them all before. You're _finished! _Washed-up. Has-Been. I'll believe it when you come back with the Silmaril! Though something tells me that you'll never so much as touch one again for so long as you live…"

"We'll see about _that."_

"Will we? Because I don't intend to watch. I'm not going to follow you on some fool's errand. I really thought you were smarter than to go on one in the first place, but it appears that I was sorely mistaken. But if you really do want to follow your father to his death that badly, why don't you do it like he did and go challenge hordes of foes until one of them eventually does you in? Go ahead! Die to your heart's content! Live up to your namesake! Make Daddy proud! But I refuse to die _with you._"

"You- You… Get out! Get out from my forge! Get out of my sight! And take your due place!"

"Believe me, I shall."

The next morning, she was gone, and all her things with her. Her room was bare, bereft of any trace, and to add insult to injury, she had taken very nearly the last of the brother's royal baubles, apart from whatever they were wearing when they went out. She even took some of Curufin's notes, blueprints and sketches such as they had been scattered about the forge. Like his father, he had always been secretive with his trade secrets and kept the greater part in a notebook contained in a small enchanted chest which, having been made and gifted to him by Feanor, was beyond her ability to open – but whatever she could get a hold of, she had taken and made off with, and no one had caught or stopped her from doing the deed because even after such an ugly fight filled with cutting, below-the-belt remarks, he had not thought that she would actually have the guts to disappear on him without further warning.

Curufin had always sought to follow his father's lead in all ways, but being dumped by his wife was _not _among the things he would ever have liked to emulate.

As for her whom he once called his Darling, this is where most historical records would lose track of her; There was no public display for people to mumble about, nor any grand famous battlefield that her corpse would have been counted on.

Through the grapevine, the sad remnant of the household she had forsaken would come to hear that she had gone to Nargothrond to seek her son, and later still that Nargothrond had fallen.

She did indeed come to Nargothrond, mulling over the location of the doors in her mind. She was sure that the scouts must have spotted her as soon as she entered the Guarded Plain, and for a moment, she stood ready, expecting a hail of arrows that never came. They seemed intent on ignoring her, but she was not the sort to take this as a sign of mercy; Were their roles reversed, she would have granted little of it. She began to think that they meant to let her pass through and keep their doors closed tight, leaving her out in the rains until she went away by herself.

To her surprise she had no problems locating the doors for she found a great, broad bridge right in front of them, and marveled at such change, and continued to marvel when the gates sprung open right away, revealing the king and a great number of soldiers who wasted no time in surrounding her and pointing all their arrows precisely at her neck. Yet more surprising was the warrior who appeared to be acting as the king's bodyguard: Not an elf, but a grim-looking Man wielding a great black sword the style and make of it she didn't recognize. She had known Orodreth since he was an annoyingly little kid whom his parents sometimes sent to pass around messages at family gatherings. Curufin hadn't wanted their son playing with him or Idril – but the ravages of Middle Earth had hardened him, and so did the birth of his precious daughter, and he was unwilling to let a proven traitor come behind his walls while his child also lived there. Upon hearing her story, his Mannish captain remarked that it seemed like she had fled for selfish motives rather than any sort of true repentance. She who had once been Curufin's Darling sensed quickly that they were of a mind to chase her off and had only come out to treat with her as a matter of principle, and so she told them that she would go away and bother them no more, if only they would give her news of her son.

But regarding Celebrimbor, the future historians would know more than she, for all they could have told her at the gates she'd been cast out from was that her son had set out to fight in what was to become the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, and never returned.

If anyone had seen him flee with Turgon's host to the hidden stronghold of Gondolin, well, then it should not have remained hidden for much longer, which would have rather defeated its purpose.

Thus was the brash lady Steel-Gleam humbled indeed, and the soldiers of Orodreth remarked with wonder that even the wicked Feanorians cried for their own. To him who, at the time, was calling himself Mormegil, she seemed suddenly very old, though he could not have told her from a fresh young maiden based on appearance alone.

It might have been kinder if they had closed the gates in her face, for then she would not have been anywhere near when the dragon came.

But none of them could find it in their hearts to cast out a grieving mother, and so they took her in and put her to work, as they had great need for weapons of war – a consequence of this all-new, more aggressive strategy of theirs. And it suited her just fine. She no longer cared about her accommodations, or whether anyone called her 'lady', she didn't even mind the people who thought her yet too lightly punished and scorned her still for her involvement in the death of Finrod.

And all she had left was rage.

She made swords, and lances and arrowheads, and heaps and heaps of armor, and sang a curse into every piece, that they might cut the hosts of Morgoth and make them bleed and cost him dearly for every acre of land he gained, and tried not to think of anything other that her work and survival, and least of all of all the life choices that had led her to this end.

Had she known in fact where her son had ended up she would not just have been relieved, but deathly jealous of him, and her prideful nature that had been temporarily numbed by grief would have woken up in full force rather quickly. All over Beleriand, the might of the Noldor had been occupied by the necessities of war, their minds and hands full with holding back the enemy – but in the relative isolation of Gondolin, its blacksmiths and artisans had been able to advance and refine their craft and research as if in peacetime, and though they didn't have the same kind of resources as the Valar could have provided in the plentiful lands of Eldamar, their means were beyond those of anyone else this side of the sundering seas.

The moment he saw the city, he was overwhelmed by how much it resembled Tirion, and he found himself perusing old memories of his idyllic childhood that he hasn't perused for decades upon decades, and a forgotten lightness awakened in his chest, and he was altogether ready to leave the outside world behind and forget about it together. With no reluctance at all did he accept Turgon's decree about never ever going back.

Now Turgon – _High King_ Turgon, now that his brother was dead, and said brother's son still much too young for the crown – had no shortage of master smiths – The most experienced experts he'd brought with him from Tirion had made him his famed twin blades which gleamed with incandescent light whenever impure things were nearby. His own sister-son, who was mighty in the city, was renowned for his skill of hand.

But Celebrimbor found that he wanted to work there more than he'd ever wanted anything in his life, both out of sheer love for his craft, and to prove his worth and loyalty and wash himself clean of his houses' dubious reputation – and what better way to do this than to pledge himself to the house of Fingolfin? His father might never find out, but if he ever did, Celebrimbor hoped that he would die mad about it. So he set to work to provide the King with a sample of his work, and at last presented him with a small dagger that contained the same bright glow in its much smaller, far more compact form. No emblems did he put on it, for it was his desire to attest his humility, to prove that he had zero desire to bedevil the city with the plots and takeovers that his parents were known for.

Little did he know how that little knife filled with all his desire for redemption would one day help to redress the greatest errors of his later days, when Turgon was long gone and his hoard plundered.

**Fourth Act, Fifth Scene**

Soon after her disappearance was noted, the remnants of the house she had forsaken assembled in the closest thing Amon Ereb had to a great hall.

Curufin was fuming, pacing around the marble floors that spoke of more bountiful times. "I thought she had the guts to do whatever needs to be done! But in the end, she's just like mother!"

"Don't bring mother into this..." It was a quiet, apologetic mumble, but it was still, probably, what everyone was thinking – stranded on these foreign shores and having to come up with new things to call themselves in Sindarin, most of them had gone with the names their mother gave them; They missed her bitterly, and Curufin's adamant refusal to do that spoke to a lot of energy diverted to actively rejecting the notions. Many of his older brothers realized that, which is why they didn't challenge him on the matter, but as for the younger one, well… Amras had been keeping silent about a great many things for a great many years, so it stood to reason that sooner or later, something would slip through.

Wiser souls might have known to overlook this as well, but Curufin was not in a patient state at the moment: "What's _that_ supposed to mean?!"

For a moment it seemed to Maedhros and Maglor that they might just have to stop their youngest (remaining) brothers from getting into a fistfight.

Amras made no countermove in response to his brother getting all up in his space, but he didn't flinch away either. His face impassive save for perhaps the faintest undercurrent of resignation.

"Don't you get it?" he said, surprisingly toneless despite the subject matter. "The Lady left because she _could._ Because she didn't swear any unbreakable oaths. I bet you would have done just the same if you were in her shoes."

"Are you calling me a coward?!"

"I'm just saying all came here of our own choice. No one _made_ us go. We could have stayed with mother if we wanted to. Didn't she ask us to do just that? _We're_ the ones who left her all alone. Betray her, or betray father… we didn't have any good choices. We still don't. Neither did mother. Neither did Lady Steel-Gleam. Come on. You're supposed to be the smart one. After everything that happened, have you still not realized what it means to follow on this path?"

"All I'm realizing is that after five hundred years, you still seem to miss clinging to the seams of mother's skirts-"

"Enough, you two!" Maedhros was just about to intercede when he found himself preempted by Celegorm of all people. "There's no point in fighting among ourselves. If there's one thing mother and father ever agreed on, it would be that. Weren't you the one going on about how we need to stick together at times like this? Save it for Thingol and the orcs!"

Fortunately, he had enough of a commanding presence of his own, and both his younger brothers liked him enough to defer to him. Amras stood down and retreated to his usual silence in a nearby corner.

Curufin, however, was still seething and ready to go off at whatever should be next to cross the corners of his vision: "Believe me, I will. But I wonder if they're our only enemies.

That Vixen betrayed us. Not to mention stole from us. And she used to be one of our house's most ardent supporters. So who can we trust anymore? Can we trust _them?_"

With his right arm, he made a somewhat wild, brusque wide gesture toward Sweetie and Darling, who had been watching the Dilemma with varying degrees of trepidation. Sweetie withered under the sharpness of his glance, while Dearest looked at him in wide-eyed disbelief.

His brothers, however, would have none of it:

"You can't be serious!"

For once, Caranthir was in agreement with Maglor: "Oh come on, you're being ridiculous now."

"Am I? Am I really? It's treason that got us here in the first place."

"You're not wrong." said Maedhros in grim acknowledgment, though the curve of his brow remained stern: "But it was _fear_ of treason that cost us many valuable allies."

"I've got no _fear_ of anything, brother." came Curufin's retorn, accompanied by vigorous gestures of his arms. "And even if I did, I'd have precious little left to be afraid _for!_ Mother ditched us. Father had to… go and get himself killed, we're being betrayed from all sides, even my own wife and son turned against us… I don't know how you expect me to believe _anyone_ anymore! You know, father was right. We've got no need for superfluous baggage."

"The Ladies aren't _baggage, _you absolute blind fool, they're part of our family-" and it seemed for a moment that Amras was absolutely ready to continue their earlier dispute right where he left off and throw firsts if need be. For all that his more standoffish inclinations might have sometimes disguised this, if pressed he could be no less combative than any of his older brothers, and, in that sense, was probably closer to the middle ones than the older pair – Not for nothing were the brothers typically described as an ominous and prideful bunch when described collectively. Truth be told, even Maglor and Maedhros could easily be described as intense and fearsome, just in somewhat different, unique ways of their own.

But it was not Maedhros' brand of intimidating presence that brought this conversation to a halt, but Sweetie herself, who, being the nominal subject of the disagreement, might have seen it as her duty to end it for all that she would rather stay out of it. It was probably fortunate that Amras vaguely liked her, insofar as he found anything much to like these days.

"Please! Please don't fight. There's no need. I would _never_ leave!" She proclaimed emphatically, surprising even Dearest with her insistence. Despite her initial trepidation, it resembled a protest more than a plea.

"Really? Never? Not for any reason?" Curufin fixated her with a sharp, piercing glance that seemed intended to burn right through her eyes and her brains only to emerge at the other end of her skull. "Then prove it. _Swear_ it. Swear that you won't desert us no matter what. In the name of the One, Darkness Take You if you fail, the whole deal. Go on! Do it! Do it right now!"

Now Sweetie had found this whole matter thoroughly terrifying even the first time around and shuddered to even think of it, but as for Dearest… Very soon after their arrival here, even as far back as during Maedhros' captivity, she had offered Maglor to make a pledge of her own and she would have made it in a heartbeat if he had not refused her. But now that she had come to understand a little more of what such a vow might actually entail, she could only see it leading to some future where they were somehow stuck together even if they both should wish for little else than to be parted.

She stood frozen, and Curufin took that for an answer:

"I see. You wouldn't. Of course not. You wouldn't gamble on the rest of your eternal lives because you feel sorry for us, or because of our titles..."

That, however, inflamed her indignation, for she had once been very much willing, regardless of whether or not that would have been wise: "With all due respect, you are doing us an injustice, us, and all the brave warriors who have followed you thus far, myself included. We have all fought and bled for our cause. We did not come here for titles or pity, but so that me might win our freedom and seize our destiny with our own arms, and in defiance of the Enemy.

As one of our Lords, you should not need to extract your pound of flesh to command our fealty – I can pledge you _that_, at least, and I daresay that it should be enough, just as my law-sister's wedding vows and her pride and obligation as a great lady of our people should be enough."

Some of her word choices betrayed that she did not necessarily view herself on par with the rest of this aristocratic gathering, but all the more, her words were rife with the tempered strength of the dedicated warrior that these lands had made her into.

"So you're saying, here behind the walls of a fortress. But what if we marched to battle, with our forces reduced as they are? Say, for example, that we do end up deciding to march on Doriath. Would you still follow us then?"

"Yes. Yes I would." Before she knew it, she had gone and said it out loud, simply because she was refusing to be cowed, and in that moment would have believed whatever it would have taken to keep herself from yielding. Facing even one of the brothers, as much as the tangential ends of his fiery wrath took every bit as much of her courage as every single time she'd fought the endless tarry seas of Morgoth's armies, and even then she wasn't sure how much longer she could have withstood the sharp, piercing gleam of his slate gray eyes, if Maedhros hadn't deemed this situation overripe for his intervention.

Now Curufin was a formidable specimen of fierce and prideful mood, but his brother towered over him, and reduced to a wild, ragged woodland lord there was something sublime and kingly contained in his very presence. "Brother. I know that you must be very upset. You have every reason to be. But for the sake of all of us and this entire undertaking, I must ask that you _calm down_." The measured appeal was irritatingly like the sorts of speeches often employed by Nerdanel, but the firmness in his voice and the stern warning in his eyes were all Feanor's, while his grim countenance held something that was all his own, a regal sort of radiance that he had always possessed, but which rather than burning out had become all the more absolute, distilled to an almost godly finality in the furnace of torment.

Curufin blinked first, backed away, and then made off to nurse his wrath elsewhere.

Without delay, Maedhros turned to Dearest. "Believe me, I _will_ rebuke my brother, as soon as would be wise. As a member of this house you have my apology, as as its leader, I owe you my gratitude. You spoke well."

"I learned from the best. And don't worry about it. I think all our nerves have been somewhat frayed as of late… right, sister?"

Sweetie didn't manage much of an answer but she nodded emphatically.

"Even so!" said Maglor, swiftly closing the distance between himself and his lady and taking her hands in his. "He had no right to speak to you in this way..." Then he looked at Maedhros. "...will you go after him?"

"Nah, you'll want to leave this to me." It was not often that _Celegorm_ was the one to volunteer to _defuse_ a situation. More than a service in the interest of peace, it was probably a testament to his particularly close bond with Curufin. "If one of you two goes and scolds him you'll just make him angrier. I think I 'get' him best out of all of us, he tells me things. And besides, I owe him one. He was there for me after the whole mess with Luthien."

Maglor and Maedhros passed a few questioning looks back and forth, but the upshot of it was that Maedhros bid him to go forth and do as he pleased.

"Hey Caranthir, do we still have some of that berry wine we got from the Nandor? How about we crack some open?"

"Nope. We got several barrels of Dwarf Beer though."

Celegorm made a face.

"What? It's cheap, it's strong, and it's easy to come by this close to the mountains. If you can find something better right now, you're welcome to try. And besides, Curufin actually _likes_ that stuff, if you would believe it. But if you two wanna flush out your sorrows together, count me out. I don't much feel like sitting down with him after he went and talked dirt about my wife just 'cause he got ditched by his own. Come on Sweetie, we're leaving. I swear, if I don't get some fresh air soon, none of you are gonna like what happens..."

Kicking up some dust for emphasis, he too left, fortunately in the opposite direction.

Sweetie followed faithfully after her husband, though she took the time to shoot his elder brothers and Dearest an attempt at an apologetic smile.

Celegorm took that as his cue to go find Curufin.

**Fourth Act, Sixth Scene**

Before long, the two of them were sitting on the battlements at the outer walls, each holding a generously sized mug of Belegost Ale, gradually descending into mutually reinforced mumblings about their respective misfortunes. The silver-haired hunter could not bring myself to make friends with the taste of the stuff, but Caranthir was definitely right to say that it did get the job done.

By the time they'd each had their second servings, Celegorm had thrown an arm around his younger brother and ruffle his hair, like he hadn't done it since Curufin had been a very prickly youth on the edge of manhood, though he knew better than to draw attention to this by attempting to provide comforting words, which would not have played to his strengths anyways. Instead, he joined right in with his brother's tirades: "Curse that faithless wench to the void!"

"And your flower princess right along!"

"And her little pet mortal!"

"And Orodreth! And his father, and the whole lot of his brothers!"

"And their sister, too!"

"And Thingol!"

"_Especially_ Thingol! Let Morgoth take him, or the void!"

"Better yet, let the void take him and Morgoth both! And all Morgoth's Lieutenants! Particularly the ones that took father from us."

"Curse them all! Curse everything!"

But at some point, even they would have spent all their rage and indignation, leaving them only with miserable, muffled utterances spoken into each other's hair or clothing as they leaned on each other. "They can't even appreciate it, you know? The Silmaril." Curufin mumbled wretchedly. "What's it to them – a treasure to brag of. The fairest object to ever exist. A reminder of the Trees, at best, a _vessel._ But the Trees are long gone. None of them appreciate that it's an artificial, manmade thing. A work of art and science and craftsmanship. They don't understand half of what they would need to know to even begin to appreciate what it really is. The work and dedication that went into it. It couldn't possibly be more wasted on them. Like pearls before the swine and tomes of lore fed to the donkeys! It's nothing to them – _nothing. _They don't even know what they're looking at_. _It's all we have left of father, and _some brat _has it, to show it off to a royal court's worth of ignoramuses..."

Then came no more words, but Celegorm's sharp ears took note of some strange, soft noises. As a matter of principle, it would not do to call them sobs or whimpers, nor were they quite growls, no matter the younger brother's valiant efforts to turn tears into range. It wasn't much of a spectacle, just a quiet, restrained simmer.

Some hours later, Maglor would discreetly throw some blankets on the pair and the rather disorderly pile they made for once they'd drifted off to sleep, probably more from some measure of emotional exhaustion than physical need. Dearest had helped to fetch them, sharing Maglor's impression that they would probably not wish to be seen by any of the servants, and seeing them like this she had more sadness than fear, and no remaining hint of indignation. Amras had absconded some time earlier, wordless and soundless. She wondered if they were all reaching the end of the line.

The minstrel and his lady had come this way after parting from Maedhros, who had decided to take the night's watch along this side of the wall, and was now pacing around not far from here as he overlooked the white grasslands. They had taken a brief, nominal supper with him, though none of the brothers had much of an appetite. Dearest, whose response to trying times or great concentration was very much the opposite in that regards, had gladly devoured their leftovers and was still chewing on some of it by the time that herself and Maglor came across the younger brothers. Fearsome as they might be, it would appear that even they had their limits – even so, she had thought it wise to leave the task of actually going near them to her husband, who managed to get them expertly covered up without waking them. Not for the last time she noted with some sadness that there were probably very few people in this world who would expect Maglor to have much of a nurturing streak. In another world, he might have been an excellent father – but Dearest no longer thought this possible, not even in some hypothetical distant future when all impossible deeds were done. It was simply not their lot, and in a way that did lessen the sadness of it, for it was not as if she had not had many other worthwhile experiences in her life that she couldn't have found on another path – but already, she was thinking of those experiences in the past tense. Though she still though eternity ahead of them back then, she could not help the instinctual knowing that their glory days had passed. But if you had asked her, at that point, even after everything that had befallen, she might have paused for thought, but in the end, she would still have told you that it had all been worth it, and for the most part she would have believed it.

**Fourth Act, Seventh Scene**

Caranthir did not return to the fortress that day. He was, at the time, sitting high up in an old, thick gnarled tree whose trunk showed the marks of earlier forest fires. He'd brought his wife up with him, which to him was a rather effortless feat, and so she had ended up right beside him on the next branch without the need to risk tearing one of her last few presentable court robes.

While she was sitting sideways on the branch, her husband was leaning against the central trunk, looking little less sullen and morose than when he left the stronghold on the hill. If anything, the exercise of stewing on the matter for the better part of the afternoon had only made it worse.

There wasn't much conversation to be got from him, but Sweetie was determined to try – not in a pushy deliberate way, like she was on a mission; That would only have set him off. She never insisted when he didn't reply, but she wasn't deterred or discouraged either.

"I hope Celegorm will have some success talking to Curufin. It's not right for brothers to be fighting… I would think that he would get along with Amras, seeing as they are the youngest..."

"Nah, but Curufin's always been acting older than he is ever since he was a little elfling. Though things didn't really get frosty between them until mother and father started fighting, what with Curufin always taking father's side and- actually, it was _Amrod_ who was usually agreeing with mother. Most of the few times the twins ever had any spats was during all that business with mother and father splitting up, and now that-"

Along that train of thought lay thin ice, which no one was yet willing to tread on.

"Well, anyways, I don't see how we could be doing anything else _but_ fighting since we're all stuck here doing nothing but watching the trees grow! See that one over there? That wasn't there first time we came. I know you don't much like fights, but I'm very much spoiling for one. We were supposed to be fighting Morgoth, not twiddling our thumbs here while our enemies do as they please! It drives me up the walls, you know? All I can think of is the orcs throwing their filth in my lake, the dragons sleeping in my palace with my treasure for pillows, and Thingol in his caves with our Silmaril! Just the thought makes my blood boil! I think if I were mortal, I should be sick to death about it."

"Uh, I don't think it works like that. Mortals can die for all sort of reasons, but not things like that, I believe."

"Honestly? I don't know or care, I'm still mighty cross about it."

"I wonder how Lady Haleth's kin is doing these days..."

"Who knows! I don't suppose Thingol would so much as lift a finger to help them out even if they're right near his borders. Everything outside Doriath could sink right in the ocean for all that _he's_ ever cared… And now he's got our Silmaril! It drives me mad… Though even if we did get it back we'd have nowhere to put it seeing as the orcs have all our vaults and castles. Ever since Nargothrond went down, Morgoth's probably been busy looking everywhere for Turgon's famous hidey-hole, but if we got our hands on it? They'd all come after us and we'd have all our hands full making sure that it won't get stolen all over again..."

"Wouldn't it be better to wait then? As long as it's in Doriath, it should be out of the enemy's reach..."

"Nope. Unbreakable Oath, remember? 'Darkness take us if we fail' and all that. But even if it weren't for that, I don't see why that cave-dweller should have it, it's ours and not anybody else's."

"You know", she said then, for lack of anything else to say, "I miss our lake as well. And our halls."

Hearing this, and perceiving how she had tentatively lifted up her hands as if to reach out toward him, he immediately went all the way without a moment's hesitation, picked her up and lifted her straight onto his lap, leaving his arms wrapped around her wait and back.

As soon as she had her balance, she took this as a sign to lean forward a trail and trail a few gentle little kisses along the freckles that lined his arms and shoulders, exposed as they were by the dark gray sleeveless tunic he had chosen for the hot summers in these verdant grasslands, but his response was markedly lukewarm.

"Don't. I don't much feel like it."

"...Did I do something to upset you?"

"Sweetie, right now you're probably the only thing on the face of Arda that _doesn't_ upset me. It's just… everything! Every single thing about how it's all turned out..."

"Then, is there anything else you feel like doing?"

"I don't know _what_ I'd feel like doing. Nothing much at all really. Can you just stay here and be quiet for now? Just be silent..."

Morose, yet somehow pleading, he drew her closer to himself with his arms, and she clung to him as the fading light of the dying day shone ever redder through the branches.

**Fourth Act, Eighth Scene**

The next morning arrived cold, gray and overcast. Maedhros was still keeping watch on the walls when he heard a familiar rhythm of steps approaching from behind. He'd been looking out at the distant horizon and turned only when the sounds of movement ceased. It was exactly who he had expected, but he was surprised all the same, for the elf now before him could not have come straight from where he had last seen him: It was Curufin, and he had clearly gone down from the walls to wash his face, throw on fresh clothes and get his windswept hair in order. He had returned to something chillingly alike to his usual calculating composure. A stranger would have looked upon it and found it hard to believe that he had been deserted by his wife just the day before, but those who knew him well would not have missed the subtle menace or the undercurrent of something much more volatile.

"I've changed my mind, brother. Celegorm is right. I say we should attack Doriath, and that we should do it soon."

**Fourth Act, Ninth Scene**

Once both Celegorm and Curufin were pushing for the attack, once they had both their respective talents focused on that, it was only a matter of time, as surely as if a chemical fuse had been lit, proceeding inexorably towards combustion. Pandora's box was opened, the seven seals were broken, and all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't have stuffed the demons back inside.

Never once was there any act of outright insubordination – the sons of Feanor were nothing if not loyal and true to their word – but Celegorm made his bold, threatening, wild-eyed declarations while Curufin stood lurking in his shadow, smiling his cold smiles and speaking in his soft, cold voice, and before long, the sentiments throughout their scattered camp began to turn, and their wandering followers began to gather closer to the fortress, as if they were getting ready to march – _precisel_y because they were getting ready to march, though not all of them knew this yet.

But the ultimate catalyst, the final spark that brought the spreading pool of fuel to ignition, should come not from within, but from without, through the irregular trickle of fragmented news pouring in from the outside world, first as uncertain questionable droplets, and then in thick viscous blots that could no longer be ignored.

The rough gist was scandalous enough even before they could get their hands on enough detail to peace together the exact sequence of events – The word was that King Thingol was dead, and Menegroth plundered; There were contradictory reports about whether Doriath still stood in any capacity, and a thousand and one tales about the exact nature and order of events in the dispute with the dwarves or the current whereabouts of the Silmaril.

At first the brothers didn't know _what_ to do, or where they would even direct a hypothetical raid – Only much later would it dawn on them that the jewel had been right on their doorstep for a while. Soon, however, all doubts were cleared once news of a grand coronation rippled through the land: Doriath still stood, or had been reestablished, though it was much weakened from the conflict with the dwarves. The wizard-queen had disappeared without a trace, and the girdle was gone – but as for the Silmaril, that they claimed now as an heirloom of their dynasty, and it was said that their new king wore it proudly, set in a peerless necklace of jewels.

Hearing this, Curufin turned to Maedhros and spoke unto him with a voice full of anguish that was still painfully genuine for all that he revealed it in a calculated manner: "Brother, how much more humiliation to you want us to endure?"

This certainly sent all those present into various states of uproar, though the pathos of the delivery was somewhat tarnished by the interrupting questions of Celegorm, who had risen from his place: "Wait! You said King, not Queen. Are you telling me that the Doriathrim took some filthy mortal for their king? And even if they did, would she not be the queen regnant?"

"No, that couldn't be, not if they're mortal." blurted Sweetie, who, on account of not lacking the necessary patience had often dealt with their Mannish allies back before their league was broken. "You fought them so many years ago, they couldn't possibly still be-"

"The princess is dead!" spat Caranthir, who had heard much of the story while he'd been out looking for opportunities to trade.

Celegorm had wondered, once in a while, if he would feel anything at those news. To his relief, he found that he didn't.

"From what I've heard the new king is her son."

Something about that stung more than it ought to after all these years, and his response to that was disbelief:"...how _could _that be? Any brat she might have would surely be way too young to be ruling more than a sandcastle!"

"Not if he's mortal. They take about… fifteen to twenty years of the sun to be fully grown, I think."

"Really? That quick?" Caranthir blinked at his wife. He would probably know this already if he'd ever shared her patience in regards to people. "That would explain that story about how he's already got a wife and kids… I guess Thingol was in a hurry to marry him off since there's no telling how long that little mongrel brat is gonna last! Can't have any questions with the line of succession. I bet he was trying to see how many generations he'd need to get through to breed the mortality right out of them. Now he's croaked, and they've gone and dressed up that little brat as a king cause they got nothing better left. And he's peacocking around with our Silmaril, showing it off in our faces. In everybody's faces! Why has he still got it?!"

"Why indeed..." echoed Curufin, lacking his brother's hot unfiltered crassness, but being all the more purposeful with his carefully chosen, strategically placed words: "The wizard-queen is gone. The girdle is gone. Even the princess is no more, and their soldiers are still licking their wounds from their squabble with the dwarves. We won't get another chance like this."

"_Neither Maia, nor Elf, nor __M__an yet unborn.._" recited Celegorm. "And he is all three. Go on brother. Tell me it doesn't apply. Tell me again that the time is not right!"

Never too hard to rile up, Caranthir agreed: "What's Doriath to us anyways? What's Doriath ever done for us? They've done nothing but scorn us from day one, and they've never once sent us any help!"

"Quite right." noted Curufin, using melodious polished speech: "They wouldn't suffer any of our people to so much as pass through their territory – not even when we were fleeing for our very lives. I wonder, how many of our people – your subjects, brother – have died trying to go around it, crossing through vampire-infested forests and wastelands full of of spider-spawn… I think we can all think of one."

It was all just pretty talk of course, means to an end, _obviously_ pretty talk, and yet, no onene looking to gainsay him could think of a refutation. Maedhros had all the time in the world to notice all of Curufin's tells – were he saying what he truly meant, his words would have been crasser, his tone haughtier, his voice steeped in conviction but not dressed up to impress. He certainly wasn't right, but he had cleverly chosen his phrasings so that they would not be _wrong_ either.

At a loss, Maglor looked to Maedhros for help, but found him gravely pondering his own ever-narrowing set of options.

"Amras. What do you think of it of this?"

The youngest brother, who had thus far stood aside in silence, leaning against the wall with his lean, athletic freckle-spangled arms crossed before his chest, at last lifted up his distant gaze.

His dreary, hardened face, framed by curtains of bright red hair, was set like a minimally softer dark mirror-image of his oldest brother: "What choice do we really have? Damned if we do, damned if we don't…. We all really should have known from the beginning that there was never anything wholesome about this voyage of ours. Anything we might do, we've have spoiled a long, long time ago with the things we've done. Anything we built on such foundations is built on sand. From the moment we set foot here, all we tried, every accident or oversight or mercy has been turned to the worst possible ends. Fell was our purpose from the start, and not by fair means should it be archived. If we're damned no matter what we do, we might as well earn it. Let's just... get it over with."

With mounting horror, Maglor realized that any vetoes on his part would be sorely outvoted. "You realize that we might all die, right?"

"So what? Who cares!"

Celegorm was every bit as much dead serious as he was brazen: "Shall we sit here deedless forever, broken and defeated, licking our wounds, bemoaning our glory of old until the memory of it drives us mad?"

Some might have recalled his father's words after the darkening, but it's unlikely that he had been looking to use similar phrases on purpose – that same sort of gravitas came to him without effort, and now that he held nothing back, he was all the more alike to Feanor in those last days, pushed far past his breaking point: "I refuse! If I am to die this strange country, then let it be on my feet!

Ennore might have beaten me, it might even have debased me, but I should be damned if I let it break me!" he cried, terrible and formidable like a hero from an epic, the very image of strength.

But when next he spoke, the princely polish came off, revealing the menace beneath: "I'm done _playing nice_, brother! I did as you said every single time, and look where it's gotten us. I'm tired of letting them all to take and take and take everything we have, piece by piece by piece! I won't stand for it! I won't take it any longer! I will not!"

He was terrifying to behold, transcending the look of a beast almost to something semi-divine, sublime and terrible.

But Maglor, who could not fear the little brother he had known him from the cradle, could only look upon him in sympathetic, weary silence.

"I'm afraid we lost it ourselves, brother… And even the Silmaril will not give it back to us, if we could even gain it at all. We can't do this. It's not right."

"Not right, you say? Then what _is_ right? What right does Doriath have to it? Is it right that they flaunt it in our faces? Is it right that they hid behind their walls and their wards, tucked away in their caves while we kept the enemy at bay with our blood, sweat and tears, while they wouldn't lift a finger, enjoying the protection of our warriors yet deigning to lord over us? Is it right that they mock us, though they would have been overrun ages ago without our intervention?!"

Maedhros shook his head, his voice stern, yet measured despite Celegorm's impassioned speech: "We did not fight Morgoth for glory or reward, brother. We did it because we promised it to our father."

"So you say! But to you recall what else we promised him? Go on! Answer! What was it, and where can it be accomplished, if not in Doriath?"

That at last struck a cord, and it was plain to see.

Maedhros looked down at the remains of his family with an almost pained look, as if he didn't know if he would ever see them again. He struggled to come up with any sort of answer that wouldn't violate his sense of duty in some way or another.

"There will be no harm in sending an envoy. King Dior is not his grandfather. Perhaps he will be more inclined to listen..."

"And if he isn't?" Curufin probed.

"Then we'll show up unannounced at their gates, and demand it in person. Demand that they see us to their King. Even if they refuse us, we might still get the chance to..."

Celegorm did not give his older brother the chance to trail off: "Swipe the Silmaril? Take it four ourselves?"

He needn't have insisted, for Maedhros saw no use in denying it:

"...Yes. And I know what you are going to say. Yes, by force, if we must."

Maglor paled: "Take it by force? Like we were going to take the Swan Ships?"

The question had not been directed to Curufin, but still he took it upon himself to answer: "That is rather up to Dior, isn't it? This affair will be exactly as clean or as he wants it to be..."

"_Please_ reconsider! If this escalates- I have the worst possible feeling about this… I don't see how any good could come of it."

"No good seem to come of _anything_ we try to do, little brother, and we can expect worse and worse the longer that we leave this matter unsettled. Let us end this while we still can."

Maglor said no more. Others might have resisted in his place, but in the end, the minstrel yielded to his brothers just like he had always folded before the iron will of his father.

**Fourth Act, Tenth Scene**

The decision had been made. Soon, the buzz of activity was spreading all throughout their stronghold and the surrounding camps, and there would have been no escaping it, not in any of its corners.

Still stunned by the blunt weight of the enormity of what was about to take place, Maglor had lingered just outside the hall where their council had taken place, and found one of his hands seized by both the hands of his wife.

He would have almost found it more comforting if she had looked up at him in fear and doubt and asked him for a solution, but her dark eyes shone with determination only, and if she was having any second thoughts, she seemed insistent that her only response should be to summon up more bluster in response, so that she might convince herself all the more the higher the discomfort in the back of her mind piled up.

She was nearly done talking herself into it, really making herself believe that their ultimatum would be righteous – after all, couldn't Dior stop all of this right now by handing over the jewel? Couldn't he save himself, and set them free whenever he pleased? And if he could do that, and _chose_ not to, _choose_, of his free will, to leave them to their torment, had she not the grounds to resent him, at least for the envy that he could end this matter so easily if he wished? Why wouldn't he do it? Would not he be the one responsible for whatever came next?

This and other such things she told herself.

The middle brothers could have gone on for hours in listing reasons to hate him, and it was ever so easy to get swept up in all of their presence and vigor.

"Don't worry."she said, squeezing her husband's hand in a gesture of support. Her fingers then guided his knuckles to her face so that she might kiss them."We'll get back your jewels. _I_ will get back your jewels." she assured him with a nod, with a string of strained hubris in her voice and a death-defying glimmer in her eyes. "You'll have them back, and then you'll be released. You'll be free, like you always wanted. Like you deserve."

And her yet unbroken faith seemed then far more dreadful than the thought that she might leave.

That evening, Dearest should find that she had not been the only one to keep a few of her notes to herself. While Celegorm, Maedhros and Curufin talked strategy and the rest of them sat leaden around the campire, Maglor sat down and played a couple of compositions that not even Dearest had ever heard yet, though she recognized them to be intricate and polished enough that they must have been the product of years and years of refinement.

They had never seen the light of the day, and he simply had not wanted to die with these melodies still trapped in his head, never known to any soul other than his own.

There was one eerie little piece with a disturbingly catchy, dynamic melody despite the contrasts between the slower and faster parts, set to an oddly little brutal little poem in which the narrator kills a bothersome little bird that was obviously a metaphor for their conscience, only to have its song follow them into their dreams. The next piece then was not all simple, stripped down or experimental, but epic according to all rules of the art, the verses in strict structure and rhyme, and told of the sinking of a great pirate-ship of heathen sailors who had been out of a quest to take vengeance upon a monstrous creature of the sea with great harpoons of iron. The last stanza was positively chilling, through its description of simple details, which as tools in the hands of a less masterful craftsman would have been bound to come off as either trivial or melodramatic, but, as they were, seemed to catch all the world and all the world's realities in the space of their meaning, and Dearest shuddered at the haunting detail of the lookout grasping a passing white bird as he was swallowed by the maelstrom – in the context of the lyrics, this was meant to cement how the ship and its crew were such vile, wretched creatures that they could not leave the world without taking at least one pure, unfouled thing out of it forever.

And then there was the last one, which did most of its talking through its whirling, complex instrumental. Future renditions of the song, if indeed there should ever be any, would probably have to distribute the parts to multiple harpists. The lyrics, in turn were relatively simple, and really just a relative few, repetitive parts, and described little more complicated than a set of rather ambivalent feelings, written so as to address an unspecified loved one, could be a partner, could be a friend, could be a parent – though it was probably a father, remembered like some sort of capricious god, in absolute reverence, sublime awe… and a thousand years' worth of seething, pent-up resentment.

No one else would ever play that song in its original form. It was a long-kept dirty little secret never meant to be written down or displayed, which meant that the minstrel never cared if it _could_ be played by an ordinary person without the unique skill of his hands and voice. Any mortal who would make the attempt should surely have despaired of it; The world should not see its like again, and in that manner it was not unlike the Silmarils.

But a scattered few would still come to hear it in the later days, dancing on the waves, lingering on the shorelines like a numinous presence, some transient living thing made of only sound, and those passers by might just throw themselves on the ground and weep to have all they feared to lose, everyone they ever loved and all the good and lovable traits that they had, everything that made them worth admiring, worth trusting, worth following to the ends of the earth, the good days, the good reasons, the saving graces – everything that left you open to being led astray, and all that made it hard to hate them once they did.

But that would be in later ages, when all remotely like it was gone from the world.

Whilst Beleriand still stood, it was not so unbearable that no one called for an encore.

* * *

It's an underappreciated factor that after trying to get everyone to band together and beat Morgoth, the brothers go from being fancy lords to basically being chased into the wilderness and it's after this that most of their more unsavory and counterproductive actions happen, so I wanted that fall from grace to be felt here.

Also after some re-reading I think I finally do have a more solid read on Celegorm; Everyone focuses on the Barbarian aspect, but there's also quite a lot of 'subverted prince charming' in there and a sort of essential bold strength underlying both.

For all that Maedhros and Maglor are the Nice and Tragic ones, a lot of ppl stop there without appreciating that in their own ways they're just as fierce, wild, intense and all-around anomalous as their brothers and father – that's also part of what I was trying to underline with the Fingon scenes in the last chapter.

For all that Fingon & Maedhros is one of the dynamics that gets the most fanfic you don't often see ppl get into the nuances subtleties and ironies beyond the basic rescue story. On the one hand they're both constructive-minded and value peace and bold action more than picking sides, on the other hand it's a friendship between blinged-out wholesome sunnyboy who gets along with everyone save satan, and Mr. grim determination incarnate from whom the bad guys run away on sight.

Maedhros is at one point described as even scarier than his already considerably scary father, and he's the one who talks Maglor into going through with it all when he suggests that they should turn themselves in (for all that he did it because he simply didn't think they actually HAD an out), so… he's definitely in the "looks like they could kill you" category regardless of his actual cinnamon content. Of course, all of this just adds to the tragedy.


	6. Denouement

Summary: Brazenly displayed sins, and the urge to turn back

* * *

Yeah we might be in a waaaay different music genre by now, a lot more MCR than Lana Del Rey

_And when we go, don't blame us /_

_We'll let this fire just bathe us /_

_You made us oh so famous /_

_We'll never let you go /_

_She said 'you ain't no son of mine /_

_for what you've done they're gonna find/_

_a place for you and just you /_

_mind your manners when you go /_

_And when you go, don't return to me my love_

* * *

**Fifth Act, First Scene**

Looking back, many of those who survived the Second Kinslaying spoke of a dark cloud descending, imperceptible at first, but ever thicker, tarry shadows lengthening and deepening as the preparations for the assault got underway and inexorably neared their zenith.

Some would call it the presence of the enemy, whose very essence was discord and deprecation of all things, others would deem it a different curse of their very own making, brought on by their careless invocation of the One – others, Dearest among them, would wonder if that darkness was ever really there, or if it only appeared that way to them, their perception altered as it would be under utmost concentration, when base instincts kicked in in the agony of survival, or the depths of inebriation.

All flesh must consume – to eat, or even just to defend itself. The machinery was there, to trend and tear and bite, inlaid in all that walked the land – some capacity for destruction had been in them from the beginning. But it was never meant to be turned on their own kind – Even a wolf would hold back; In a struggle for dominance against fellow wolves, it would not bite as it would its prey – except of course for the perverted wolves of Sauron.

It was not natural, not intended, for their kind to be fighting each other – though perhaps in their folly they would have declared that even nature or the great divine plan was not the boss of them.

The One had certainly left them their free will, so their natures described not so much their limits, but the costs and consequences of breaching them. To go against their nature was to numb themselves to part of it, to suppress their doubt, to harden their hearts and drown out the cries, if not of their compassion, then of basic inhibition and decency – and without those, it should not come as a surprise that the world should look and feel quite different, and perhaps, in words, shadowed, not essentially different from the sort of world that Morgoth was seeking to create, not in the mind, but in cold hard reality. The resemblance would have been a consequence then, like needled trees and leafy trees bearing the same form, though they were vastly different kindreds of plants, or desert plants everywhere resembling each other greatly, as they were shaped to the same purpose.

Morgoth, in other words, had no monopoly on folly.

The Feanorians and their soldiers were all mighty and often armed – even without a sword, most of them would have managed to strangle their comrades in broad daylight, or to crush their skulls with a nearby large stone without a moment's hesitation. But there could be no semblance of society if they were to expect this day in, day out.

They all knew the basic motions, on some level, the skills required to fight the guards of Doriath were about the same as those they had used against the hosts of Morgoth. Sure, there would be no wave of disposable cannon fodder crawling everywhere, and more in the line of age-old, formidable elite warriors, but that was a minor strategic adjustment – Already, their forces mostly trained by sparring which each other, it was not as if they had never fought other elves, insofar as the procedures went. But war was not merely a jostling of bodies, but a marring and unhousing of souls.

If Orcs still had souls, they would probably have been regarded as a shriveled, vestigial component of their beings. They ate and drank and bred, they had ambitions of will, dark cunning thoughts and plenty of dark feelings, they even spoke, gave names, and sometimes sang their harsh ugly songs – but in all those things they were bereft of beauty, in the superficial sense, but especially in all deep ways. Most of what Elves and Men did, they did, but their deeds would be bereft of everything that made them worthwhile, so when they were sliced, little of value was lost. The other monsters of Angbad were even less to be lamented, lacking even this faded, wasted spark of something once devised and touched by the one. The closest thing to 'people' one would find in the pits might ironically be the Balroggs, for all that they might have appeared the most monstrous; Orcs, werewolves and dragons were constructs of Morgoth which for the most part had never been anything else, but the flaming Demons were once ordinary Maiar, the like of which those born in Valinor would have seen none too rarely, working in the dwellings of the various Valar, or simply dwelling on the slopes of the holy mountain – as creatures of pure spirit, anything to do with physical limitations or being confined to one place at a time was highly optional for them and their power reached far, seeing as they were tiny parts of the same force that called all things into being in the first place; Their numbers had not increased or decreased in all the days of the world since the moment Eru thought them into being - but at least as far as the ones in Valinor went, they still chose their paths, pursued interests, and had their idiosyncrasies – One particular eccentric specimen… Olorin, was it? Had once even turned up at the Forges and asked Feanor for an autograph. They had friends and spouses, and even something akin to siblings and relatives, though it probably did not mean quite the same for them as it did for creatures of the flesh – but they had used that word to describe it because it was the closest approximation barring all the finicky details. Some of them knew doubt, some were known to be irritable and they were certainly not immune to be swayed by pride or temptation, as the very existence of Balroggs would attest – but all of that had become unrecognizable in the fiery beasts they had become, and if they were to be seen as individuals, then they would each be individually guilty of such atrocities that they could only deserve whatever was coming to them – and though traitorous men lacked the power to do as much damage or transform themselves so completely, it was much the same with them; They had each chosen the Enemy.

But as far as the Sindar went, such accusations of deliberate villainy might at best be leveled at their Kings, if one were to generously grant this to the brothers and their supporters at their most self-righteous.

The worst that could be said of the soldiers that would be defending them, and whichever civilians would inadvertently but inevitably become caught up in the fight was that they were loyal to their home and their kings and would bear no insult upon them, much like the brothers themselves were loyal to each other and the cause and memory of their father.

These were no hideous pit-creatures who knew little but hate – they were elves, same as themselves, many of which had fiercely loved their lands with enduring ardor for many, many years. It was not called Doriath before the return of Morgoth necessitated the girdle, but the Kingdom of Thingol dated nearly as far back as the beginnings of the reign on Finwe. Many of the warriors they might encounter would be older than themselves, and would have built their own complex lives for just as long. They might have children, siblings, spouses – certainly parents, cherished friends, and sworn comrades whom they would give their lives to protect.

They would have bright, radiant souls, filled, no doubt, with music, lore and splendor, hopes and dreams, plans for the next week, or the next century, which they would never come to see.

In a sense, the fact that they were Sindar made it worse – With the possible exception of the remaining six brothers themselves, the casualties among the Calaquendi would know where they would be going, and once they were released from the halls, they would have somewhere to return to – perhaps they had kin still awaiting them on yonder shores, with some luck, their old houses in Tirion would still be standing, they might even recognize some of Namo's Maiar in the halls themselves. There would be judgment, and consequences for their deeds, but all in all they would be returning to a familiar place, a society that would judge them precisely because they were part of it though they might have transgressed. There was none who wouldn't rather avoid a painful demise and the humiliation of judgement, and hold fast to the however tenuous freedom they had attained on these shores, but all of this concerned things, people and concepts that had been part of their lives before – It would be a bitter defeat, not utter destruction.

The Sindar, however, would lose everything – all that they had poured their lives into for the however many centuries, all that they had built with their blood, sweat and tears, would be beyond their grasp forever, and they would have to start over from scratch in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar laws. That would have been a horrid thought for all those who could think, but it would be especially harsh on an Elf, even more so for one of Telerin lineage – Dearest of course never understood it, having spent almost all her early life in Tirion among her own people, but for that same reason she was observant enough to at least notice and describe how much they loved their waters, and their trees… and her curious mind wondered, would they join themselves to the kingdom of Olwe, or would they be granted their own land in the unpeopled expanses of Valinor? Perhaps the Wizard-Queen could put in a good word for her subjects of old? Would the Valar hold council to find the right location and in doing so finally see some use in the extensive maps compiled by her family's wanderings? Would some of the Sindar run from the room fighting tormented gasps when they glimpsed the star-shaped emblems at the corners of the maps, having last seen their likeness on the blades that pierced the bodies they were born with?

These thoughts and many more had to be pushed down and silenced if they were to do what it was they were planning.

Sharp clangs of metal rang out, supplies were packed and long-calcified provisional camps were cleared out never to return.

As the designated lady, it falls to Dearest to ceremonially hand the provisions to the soldiers, especially the waybread, but the custom must have rung hollow, for neither did they honor the one who started it (Yavanna) nor would she have approved of the senseless loss of life they were about to perpetuate.

Some went about their dirty orc-work in heathenish camaraderie, others forbade themselves from even calling it an attack even in the silence of their minds, as if to convince themselves that they need not examine the consequences of such a thing and the responsibility they would bear for it so long as there was still some however faint theoretical chance that it would never happen –

Even as they sat together, fastening their armor, sharpening their swords, in their bones, expecting battle, as if it were already inevitable:

"Dior the Fair they call him..." spat Caranthir, his voice dripping with so much venom that the name alone seemed a ridiculous mockery. "I for once can't _wait_ to smash his pretty face in!"

Yet somehow under the spell of this strange fog, nobody so much as flinched at the crass violence of his statement, a far cry from the circle of their cousins where his harsh words had often caused offense.

Amras said nothing, but he too sat there, sharpening his sword, his expression unreadable.

Counting arrows at his side, Curufin seemed perfectly unfazed, unperturbed in his impassive contempt: "Not so fast. Perhaps he has hid the Silmaril. He'll need his face to tell us where it is. Although, if he won't speak, perhaps we shall pull it off in strips until he does."

"No I think not," countered Celegorm, an imperious declaration brimming with fierce pride and indignation that was neither Caranthir's brusque, unfiltered rage nor the cold-burn "You shall do no such things, little brothers. The little King is _MY_ prey – and I shall take great satisfaction in purging _that man's_ son off the face of Arda!"

"We won't be purging anybody from anywhere, unless they give us reason." said Dearest as she strode into the armory, firmly, though that firmness was in great parts grounded in her certainty of her next few words: "Such were the orders of Lord Maedhros."

"Sure, sure..." answered Curufin, his calm smile a far cry from the cutting suspicion of their last confrontation. He had, after all, taken note of the great dark sword which hung at her side despite her words, and of the blue tunic and dark leather breeches that had replaced her gown.

"Oh, but would that they _gave_ us reason! I tell you now, that I shan't regret it even it were the last of my deeds!"

The wife of Maglor had come at the behest of both her lord and husband, to summon them all to one last discourse on strategy before they were to depart, and so at last, the brothers hastened to finish their business and followed her all of the room.

Only Sweetie, who had no weapons of her own to prepare and hence knew not how to busy the sweating, nervous hands which she'd wrung in her lap as she sat silently in a corner was uncertain whether to follow, knowing not which role, if any, she was going to play in the coming events.

When Curufin took note of her from the corner of his eye just as he was about to step through the door arch and approahed her – Caranthir her husband had been the first out the gate – all the response she could muster was to look resolutely at that bit of loose thread in the embroideries that covered her rich purple gown above her knees.

This morning he'd got up and acted a convincing facsimile of his usual self, like his earlier outburst towards her had never happened, but she could not forget it.

"Aren't you coming, Lady?" he spoke softly and deliberately, with the selective emphasis on decorum that his father had impressed on him. Little did either of the great smiths concern themselves with propriety when it wasn't in their favor but on matters that touched them near they could be the most particular of sticklers, so no matter what he might think of her, he would not fail to address her as the spouse of his elder brother any more than he would have slacked off on the enunciation of his dental fricatives.

Right now it was hard to tell what he was thinking of her, if his rage had passed like dissipated stormcloud, or if it was merely hidden; He spoke softly, carefully, like when he was looking to get something he wanted.

"I- I'm not sure I if shall be of much use..."

"Perish the thought! You _must_ come, Lady! We can't do it without you." he declared, measured, reassuring and undoubtedly silver-tongued. "Your role is perhaps the most crucial one. If we only bring our best fighters, then my brother's ruse won't work."

Terrified that she might have overlooked or misunderstood something crucial, Sweetie finally looked up in pained confusion, and yet, foreboding glimmered in her eyes.

"You know. All this talk about coming in peace and wanting negotiations that Maedhros was going on about."

"...that was... a ruse?"

"It will be. He just doesn't know it yet."

**Fifth Act, Second Scene**

When they arrived in the middle of winter, too sudden to be stopped and too numerous to be fought off or turned away without consequence, Curufin smiled.

When he and his brothers stood before Dior's representatives and demanded to be seen, he continued to smile – even as they were at last refused, his expression did not change – he still bore that soft, cold smile that was entirely his own, much like his long-lost favorite horses or the name he never used, his lips never too far from a contemptuous smirk.

Any who recalled Feanor in his youth would have found him scowling in most of their memories, and if not, raising an eyebrow in suspicion, or looking distant, as if consumed with intense concentration – closed off and mercurial, he had not smiled very much at all without particular reason, and if at all, usually in mockery or triumph.

As much as their looks and disposition had been the same, their environment was not – Feanor had spent most of his early days alone with his father. At no point in his life had he so much as liked or fully trusted many more people than he had fingers on his hands. Anyone else flinched from his gaze, spoke behind his back or yielded all too easily to his will. The older palace servants in Tirion had all sorts of stories and, all in all, recalled him as willful, troubling and altogether unchildlike.

His family had overheard them at times: "What a creepy brat he was! But the king refused to see it, just as he does now!"

They said the same about his offspring: "The older ones seem nice enough, they're well behaved, excellent children, but then when you least expect it they say those morbid things... The next two are basically wild animals. Yes, Tyelkormo as well. He might act like a prince, but he's an animal underneath. But it's the youngest three that creep me out. Especially _that_ one."

That one meaning Curufin. But he'd never mind it – if anything, he found it quite amusing when people were scared of him. There was a sense of power to it. He never feared being rejected or abandoned – why would he? He was the fifth of seven brothers, practically the second-youngest on account of the last two having arrived at once. He'd always had many companions, and the favor of his father who had by then already proven his mettle, won his renown and earned himself a staunch flock of followers. He had all the reasons in the world to be smiling to himself, every reason to be confident – great things had been expected from him from the get-go, and he found it easy to deliver.

Perhaps, he gotten complacent without the same sort of desperate need to drive him. The cutting words of his estranged wife still rang in his ears, as did the repudiations of his son – Curufin always thought that he understood his father better than anyone, but now he began to consider that he might not truly have understood his situation until he found himself thus abandoned. But however he died, whatever became of him in his last days, Feanor was still Feanor – for better or for worse, his legacy was undeniable. If Curufin were to die here, in this place and time, he would probably be more likely to be remembered for his failed scheme at Nargothrond than for anything he had invented, second best forever unless others should come who might surpass it.

He refused to accept this, but he knew it, and it stung.

But despite all the differences, he was enough like his father that his only response to that was to refuse even harder.

All he did once Dior's messenger was done articulating his answer was to calmly turn to Maedhros:

"Well, big brother, I suppose we have our answer then. With this, they have sealed their own fate."

The next thing he did, before either friend or foe could respond to the full of his phrasing, was to plunge his blade into the messenger's abdomen, forcing the hands of fate. He had drawn his sword so quickly, so calmly, without even a twitch in his face, but all his semblance of composure crumbled away in that instant and his smiling face spit into wild, fey laughter, in the manner of a serpent unhinging its jaws, or the bud of a red flower popping open right before shriveling apart.

To some, it would seem like they had seen a ghost, a scattered, distorted echo of a man who had died more than five centuries prior. For a split-second, it was like they had seen him, risen from the grave he never had. Curufin had never looked more like him than he did in that instant.

But to the work of his longsword, the Sindar could have only one response, and thus their seasoned warriors descended on the host before their gates and thus began a fierce, merciless battle.

"Everlasting darkness take us if we fail!" cried Celegorm, raising his own sword, and what should have been their condemnation, he somehow turned into a rallying cry that sent their forces into swift and deadly action. Dearest was right there with them, raising up her long dark weapon, one defiant blade among many caught in a feverish daze of bloodlust and frenzy.

Driving the vanguard relendlessly was Curufin, still laughing, still hacking at everything that moved: "Menegroth shall burn!" he roared, cutting through another, and another, heedless of the arrows coming his way "All of you shall burn! You have doomed yourselves, do you hear that!"

He fought about as dirty as he could, abandoning what mercy he ever possessed, or even his vanity.

But the bulk of the charge was led by Celegorm, elegant yet savage in the throes of his berserker rage, sublime and herculean in the way of a wild boar – at one point he lifted a guard above his head and crushed his spine with nothing but the bare strength of his arms, bathing in the blood.

Close behind was Caranthir, his battle cries never ceasing, a vicious, pragmatic brute with no splendor to speak of.

Some of the survivors would later liken him to an orc, but perhaps a Man would have been the better comparison, only that few Men could have attained such a level of prowess, honed over hundreds and hundreds of years. He'd come from paradise, without whose slendor he could never have become as he is, and yet unsuited for it, made, as it seemed, for naught but this barbarian end.

Like a blaze engulfing everything in its path until the last of its fuel was consumed, they had nothing left to lose.

Leaving their foes no reprieve they pushed forward, and before long, they were crossing blades beneath the carved roof of Menegroth. Age-old elite fighters were their foes, their technique and skill unparalleled, but the Feanorians were so much more versed in the trade of actual slaughter, having had much more proactive than the ancients beyond the girdle. It might be a different matter if Doriath's great champions had still been alive, Beleg, Mablung, Luthien herself – But they were all gone, wasted by the endless bitter strife and now, many others were following them in heaps.

At first the smaller force actually managed to overpower their foes – even worn down by decades of wear and tear and ever-dwindling supplies, the Noldorin host had the better equipment.

Dearest herself felt the enemies melting like butter before her long, dark blade, flesh and bone, dreams and livelihoods severed without even troubling her arms with nary any resistance, as easily as if they were thin air. There really was little in this world that could have stood up to a blade once forged by Feanor.

But the caves of Menegroth were vast and deep, and their labyrinthine makeup known only to their foes, and as the battle raged on, the Feanorian forces found themselves increasingly scattered throughout the corridors and stony boulevards, and instead of sweeping in as a focused wave of destruction, they increasingly lost sight of each other, and with the Calaquendi split into manageable packs, the Sindar had a chance.

Queen Melian was long gone, but in her wisdom, she had the whole complex of caverns designed for defensive vantage and graceful evacuation, almost as if she had known that her former subjects would one day have to flee it.

And then their was her grandson, Dior Eluchil. Chiefly known for his lineage and his beauty, as he never lived long enough to be known for his deeds. All his life he was compared to the likeness of his mother, the shadow of his grandfather, until the day he met the warriors who should slay him.

"You little twerp just don't know when to quit! Just like your filthy wretch of a father!"

And that was the last thing he heard, and the last words his opponent would ever speak.

Once he reached it, Maedhros took one look inside the throne room, stared white-eyed at the scene, muttered "Blood and Darkness!" and then turned to his companions, assuring them grimly that they need not come inside, for there was nothing left there to recover, and no one left to save: "Celegorm won't be coming."

Maglor was shortly behind him then, and his wife had stuck close beside him, and that was probably why she lived through the slaughter.

**Fifth Act, Third Scene**

"We need to go, and we need to do it _now_. Lord Maedhros said to retreat with no questions asked.

Do you hear me?!"

Dearest must have looked frantic and frazzled then and quite terrifying herself, for the soldiers obeyed them. She wondered if they knew just how much of her insistence was born of her surging, buzzing fear of what else might come to happen if they lingered here any longer.

They raced beneath the arcades that surrounded a great passageway that might otherwise have been a busy street, not daring to come out from beneath the stone arches for fear of Sindarin arrows.

One wondered what this place might have looked like in full bloom, with all of its denizens wandering here who made up its soul and knew all of its fading secrets that would be lost and meaningless after today, but the empty silence only underlined its stony beauty, all the things that _looked_ like images of trees and animals and yet did not move, the mighty columns and mosaics glimmering with gems.

They were ever ready to meet foes, but when next they found them, they could only conclude that they had been too late: There had been a squad of Sindar guards laying in wait for them indeed, but Dearest and her warriors found the trap already sprung, the ambush had already sprung forth and its component parts now lay scrambled on the floor, weapons and soldiers already cleaved and broken and scattered among them were a handful of fallen soldiers wearing armor marked with eight-pointed stars. With the light gone from their eyes, it took a second glance to discern them from the Sindar. Their numbers were few, _far_ fewer than the opponents they must have encountered, reallxy no more than five, but they must have slain the last of their foes with their last blows for they had left a sixth figure still moving, breathing and trembling, weeping profusely into the breast of a Noldorin warrior through her wails would have surely alerted any surviving enemies.

The man beneath her was the most unrecognizable at all, his empty, lifeless shell the most foreign, the most vacant, for it was a vessel that had once contained a little more than the typically allotted share of life and spirit.

Never once had he looked peaceful, not even as he slept – even now he did not, he simply looked frozen, interrupted.

He lay in a pool of blood that had spread much too wide for him to be alive, but even before that registered, Dearest knew at once that he must be dead, even before she processed the sight far enough to grasp that this was her law-brother Caranthir, whom she had worked and lived with many years.

She knew better than to hope that he might still be saved.

But she who now mourned him seemed unharmed – all the blood that stained her robes came from him, from letting her ears linger where his heartbeat long subsided, from grabbing a tiny fistful of his tunic with her slender fingers.

Her tears and snot were streaking down her pretty face like a waterfall, and it did not appear like she had given any thought to fleeing. She knelt there alone and forgotten, having outlived her enemies without a hand in the matter.

Doubting not that this would be a miserable business, Dearest sheathed her sword and sank down to a squat to be closer to the height of her eyes before speaking to her, resolute, but not without a weary empathy: "Sister. We _have_ to go now."

"I'm not leaving! Not without him!"

"There's nothing we can do for him anymore. We need to leave _now._ The moment they see you, with your flaming eyes, your dark hair and your metal ornaments, they won't hesitate to plunge a sword into your back."

"But where would we even go? What is there even left for me, in this strange, barren country where everything decays? I came for him! I stayed for him! I never cared about land, or revenge, or the Silmarils! I just want him! I only wanted him! Oh, how I wish that I were back on white Tirion upon Tuna!"

"None of us will ever see it again for as long as the world lasts. You heard Namo as well as I did: If you or I came to his halls, we would be shut up in there forever. And even if you were to pay such a price, you could never go where he is now."

"Oh I don't believe it! I don't believe in my heart that Eru Illuvatar would do such a thing! I don't believe He would sent any of us to the void, even if we asked Him. Are we not called His children? If a child came and asked of you something unreasonable without knowing the full consequences, would you grant such requests? If my little sister asked me for a jar full of cookies I would surely refuse her! If little Tyelpe had asked you such a thing, back when he was still a boy, would you not have done the same?" but even as she spoke the doubt overtook even her trembling voice and racked by sobs her slender body suddenly seemed very little. Still she dug in her heels: "I won't believe it! I refuse!" Blood smeared her face as she clung to the cooling flesh of her beloved from which no comfort would succor her ever again.

Stricken, the soldiers looked on with heavy eyes, and Dearest felt despair stinging at her heart. She thought her law-sister's hope as futile as her tight iron grip on her husband's emptied remains.

But then, one of her warriors took note of something else: "My ladies! We've got incoming!"

"We need to _go._"

Seeing no other chance, she swiftly rose to her feet and made an attempt of trying to drag her law-sister to her feet, but her resistance was surprisingly fierce and she all but refused to let go.

Realizing that lingering here any longer would lead to the certain deaths of all her companions, Dearest gave up the struggle after one last attempt.

When Maglor asked what had become of his brother's wife, she would tell him that she was lost.

But was she?

Some might say that she was saved, for she had renounced her house and its blasphemous quest and never took a life. Even in the end she couldn't do it, when one of the fallen warrior's swords had come to lie still right before her and the enemy only moments from striking her down.

Though she had taken and raised it, she could not actually bring herself to use the deadly weapon in her trembling hands. Though he was tied down with a handful of foes, her husband noticed that she was overwhelmed, turned to her aid, and this was his undoing – he slew them all, but dropped mere seconds later from the wounds he had sustained.

Thus, one of the very last deeds amid all this dreadful barbaric slaughter was in fact an act of love.

'Sure, he can be a bit harsh sometimes and he does not always choose his words well', she would often say to many who had expressed surprise at her choice of a spouse, or wondered why she had not gone for Celegorm or Curufin, who, however black their souls, could at least have managed a convincing polished exterior.

'but he has a good heart, with soft places, though they be hidden like the creatures that dwell in the waters of a deep, dark lake' - this she would say, and her smile would make it evident that she felt warm inside when she thought of what she meant by it. Only after the incident with the Haladin did anybody even remotely begin to believe her.

But little could it be hoped to count, as a drop of light in an ocean of blackness, no more than his last deed could count when the numerous victims of his slaughter were laying dead all around them, and when it was him who took her to this dangerous place to begin with, to deceive, at worst, the Sindar, and at best merely himself and his brothers.

As for them, they never heard what became of her, only that she never followed them from the halls of Menegroth, and that those were never again peopled. No one ever returned to take stock of the damage or try counting all the bodies, and no one buried them.

Perhaps she was indeed killed on sight by a troupe of Sindarin defenders much as her law-sister had feared – or perhaps they took pity on her, and let her be; Perhaps the ones who found her would have sneered at the thought of the kinslayers _expecting_ the worst of them just because their own compunctions to slaughter their own kind had long eroded away. They might even have made the token effort to supply her with food and water while she withered away like a cutting of flowers long bereft of roots, and though it a mercy when her immobile form ceased its breathing.

Or maybe she even lived. Maybe she lay on the ground for long until she realized that she could live by herself after all, figured that she might as well get up, and haunted the abandoned stone halls as a ghost until the land was drowned, caught unaware by the flood in the darkest depths of the caverns to which she had retreated, having lost all desire to see or hear anything more of the world above.

**Fifth Act, Fourth Scene**

At last, the fever dream ended; Sobered by the reality of loss, the remainders of the Feanorian army awoke to a cold, chilly reality overhung with grey mists.

Of the ruling house, all eight remaining members still loyal to the cause had gone in, and only four had come back out. Only four of the thirteen members which their house had comprised at its height. More than ten thousand followers had come with them from Valinor; now, they were reduced to less than a thousand.

Yet the ones that fate chose to spew back forth from the caverns of Menegroth seemed the least suited to survival.

Had Curufin, Celegorm, Caranthir and Sweetie been the ones to emerge from the strife, they would surely have been wroth and aggrieved at their losses, but it seemed unlike their natures that they should have been as burdened by regret.

By the time Dearest and her soldiers joined up with the sorry remains of their host, Maedhros had already left the host, as soon as he heard of what his fallen brother's servants had done with the young princes of Doriath – such a vile deed, and yet it would have been impossible if those retainers had not admired and loved their lord enough to avenge him. But neither could it have happened if Celegorm had conducted himself in such a way as to make it clear that he would have disapproved of such a deed.

For all that Maedhros had loved his brother, he could not say without doubt that he would not have wanted this.

He spoke harshly to the servants and likely left them terrified out of their wits, but he was never tempted to slay them, not with this certainty staring him in the face, the self-evident, laughably obvious truth that no greater, piled up number of unjust deaths could have erased the ones that had already come to pass.

But the children had only been the most apparent in their innocence, their small forms the most obvious in how little they deserved death.

They had killed those boys' father, despite knowing better than anyone the ruinous pain of such a loss, a black deed just like the very one on which all their reckless actions had been founded, and from that man's daughter, they had now taken her brothers just as surely as they had lost their own, so with what right did their damned souls still cry for the redress of their own loss?

They were not only bereft, but thoroughly undermined, all their sacrifices thus far rendered vain, null and void.

Already the absence of the three fallen brothers was making itself heard in the chorus of the discourse: Had they still been alive, their voices would have been calling for the Silmaril, and how to go about scouring the woods for its radiance.

Maedhros himself had, without a second thought, ran off to chase after the children, desperate to find them still living.

Some reported that he had looked wild and frantic as he ran off into the night, his usual stoic countenance all but disintegrated.

Dearest was not there to see it, but hearing it described, her heart could not help but call to mind the likeness of Feanor as he had ran from the ring of doom, devastated near to death.

Maglor would have followed his brother, were it not for the need that somebody command the remnant of their people. Maedhros, as always, had simply been quicker to act.

When the minstrel beheld his wife coming forth between the trees, his eyes surely marked her and he turned to her in acknowledgment, but he did not run too embrace her – no room was left in his heart for joy or relief, and none would have been found in hers even if he had taken her in his arms, for the horror was lodged deep in her bones even before he explained what more had befallen.

So wearied and deadened was his voice, so hollow his eyes, that he could not even manage a tremble or a sob as he warned her not to expect too many of his brothers: "Father burned. Curufin didn't. Not even singed. Nothing. I wish he had. – it took so long. I held his hand. He cried for mother."

So it fell to her now, the cruel and thankless task to make him understand that he need not expect Caranthir either.

It was yet another blow he was far too numb to feel.

There were no words of comfort, no embraces. They had none too give, not with these hands so black with taint, and so red with warm blood, bone-splinters and chunks of entrails stuck to their long dark blades.

What comfort could such stained hands give, and who would find relief with such blackened souls?

What good would any succor even be to such sinners?

Amras did not ask for any when he arrived. With one glance he took stock of the survivors and departed right again with any such people as would come with him.

In the woods, they might surely encounter more defenders – more _survivors_ rather, and they would surely give battle. But as she could not beat to look at Maglor and hear the emptiness screaming between them, Dearest went with him, leaving her husband to gather the greater past of their scattered host and ready them for their long flight.

So the oldest brother chased the children, and the youngest chased the Silmaril, but at the time of their futile, wearied return, their disorganized, half-hearted push to look for both at once had ensured that they should find neither.

Empty-eyed and empty-handed, both at last returned, bloody-hued shocks of red hair striking amid the dark emerald foliage underneath a crimson dawn.

Refusing the world, striding forward distant and thoughtless, they did not cease or pause to speak until they could no longer walk forward because they had both met in the center of the waiting survivors, where Dearest spotted her silent, unmoving husband standing in wait as she came in with the rest of the other ones who had come with Amras, most of them from the circle of his most faithful rangers and forest vagabonds.

"We couldn't find it, I couldn't cover the entire area on my own..." the younger said, as if he expected his eldest brother to be angry – and he was, but not at all because he held Amras' failure against him:

"And what does it matter?! How could this possibly still be important?!"

Even upon hearing it with with her own keen elven ears, Dearest couldn't quite believe it.

His voice was breaking.

"What have we _done_?"

**Fifth Act, Fifth Scene**

They hardly spoke in the coming days.

They each knew what they had done, and no words would absolve them.

If they had not lead each other to it, then they had in the very least failed to protest.

All the words, and every breath that might have passed between them was either flattened by the weight of responsibility or deflated by the needles of resentment.

At most there would be Maedhros pacing around, like a forest fire sure to burn itself out if it did not keep up its restless march, ever calling to no one in particular:

"How could we do this? What compelled us? How did we delude ourselves so?"

Often through the years had they looked to him for guidance, left to him the painful decisions that were like to cutting his own flesh, but when he faced them at last with pleading questions, they could give him no answers.

Maglor sang his daily laments where they thought they wouldn't hear him, but with a voice like his he would have had to venture far indeed to be gone from their earshot.

At last even the wife whom he had once won with his soulful melodies wanted nothing dearer than for him to shut up, for the guilt in her own soul sang more than loud enough.

Craving nothing more than silence but unable to face the followers that had taken her for their lady only to be led to such senseless ends, she often choose to sit with Amras out of the hope that he at least would be silent, but when she wasn't obliged, she knew full well that she had no right to protest against it.

What peace could she deserve? She could not even recall just how many Sindar she had killed.

Had she not pushed for this as well? Had she not also been right there first in line for the burning of the ships?

She had sought him for her own convenience, so he had every right to use her for his own, to unload the filth that had festered in his heart for the better part of an age:

"I can't stop thinking about them, Lady. I try not to, but they're everywhere. It was Celegorm who taught me to light a fire. It was Curufin who taught me to ride a horse- I've lived longer here now that I did in Aman. All my life has been this fight… But as long as I recall they have always been there. Always."

Much to her shame, Dearest knew she had nothing to say.

She was an only child. She never had brothers. Her parents were still safe and live in Valinor, though it felt now like they were invented characters from a distant dream, much like her self from that past.

Often she'd wish that he would speak with her more, or thought that someone _should_, but he never opened up to her the way he sometimes did with Sweetie, and now she was gone, too, and now that he came to her at last she had nothing left to give.

He must be coming to her because he did not wish to bother his remaining brothers – because he could hardly cry to the soldiers, and she couldn't possibly be hurting as badly as they were.

"Caranthir used to say that he wished mother and father could see us. What we made of ourselves. But you know what? I'm glad that they're not here. I'm_ glad _that I will never see them again. I'm glad that mother cannot see what has become of us. And father, the way he was at the end- I'm so glad that I never have to see him again! I'm not sure I'd want to, right now, but I know that if I could see him, and hear him talk the way that he used to, I would swear this stupid oath all over again and go along with all that he says… At least Maedhros _said_ something once in a while, but not me. Not while it mattered.

Amrod was braver than me. He wanted to turn back because he saw where this was going. But of course by then it was too late to turn back… It's been too late from the very beginning. We had no choice but that first one, and we got it wrong. Everlasting darkness take us if we fail!"

And he laughed, and it was like his father's laugh, and amid his laughter, he finally cried the tears he'd been holding back for five long, long centuries, along with many that were altogether new, seeing as he now had much more than the fourfold horror to beweep.

"You realize that we're _worse_ now, right? We're worse than him. Worse than all he ever did. Far past that. We _meant _to kill them. Don't tell me we didn't. We came there expecting slaughter…

And so we shall be remembered – the children of the greatest elf to ever live… the very worst murderers of them all."

Later this would be yet another shame on her conscience, but right then, she excused herself as politely as she could and fled from his presence into the trees, haunted still by the crackling of the fire.

**Fifth Act, Sixth Scene**

In the days of their birth, the world had still been young, and there was much left to invent.

To credit Maglor Feanorion with the inception of the epic poem as an art form would have been overblown, the simplest predecessors likely dated back to Cuivienen, the Sindar had their own sophisticated traditions, particularly in Doriath. But it was not at all a stretch to claim that his early works in the deeps of time had singlehandedly led the push to develop and codify the genre and the understanding of it as a classical Noldorin art form.

Some degree of musical inclination had always been inherent in all manner of elves and, for that matter, all thinking, speaking creatures, if not quite to the same extent. It was in the nature of this universe, carried in the wind and the trees and the waters, and even Sauron couldn't wholly squeeze it from the orcs, for all that their vestiges of songs were crude and vulgar.

But if one had assembled all the prominent bards, poets or musicians among the first two generations of the Eldar after the great journey, one would have been looking a crowd of gold and silver with only a smattering of study dark-haired figures poking out of the crowd.

Sure, the Noldor had produced many great loremasters and scholars who wasted little time in having the prodigious output of their fellow elves analyzed and classified into budding genres about as quickly as they were being written, and it was only through the efforts of figures such as Rumil and Feanor that the remainder of the Eldar even had any means with which to write it all down, but if you asked around in Alqualonde, on Tol Eressea or on any of the various Vanyarin settlements on the slopes of Taniquetil and asked to hear their thoughts on the latest artistic achievements of their neighbors down in Tirion – well, they would have had very much to discuss, actually, but they would have assumed straight away that you were speaking of statues, paintings and all manner of peerless, intricate artisanal objects, and might not have thought to mention music or poetry unless you explicitly broached the subject.

There already existed a sizeable body of work with the beginnings of a tendency toward the abstract, experimental and evocative, but all in all, the common wisdom was that the Vanyar were the best poets, and the Teleri had always prided themselves that some part of their people had mastered song before they got the hang of talking, indeed their own word for themselves marked them as the Lindar,'the singers.'

This was, by necessity, understated in any description thought up in later days on different shores when even the memory of the primeval world had faded into the mists. Certainly, none could have bested them at the kinds of poems or songs that they liked to make, of the sort that flowed naturally from their hearts as surely as their fingers moved with but a stir of their thoughts:

The Vanyar had their way not just with all sorts of hymns and praises, not just of the Valar, but of the general bliss in which they lived, the beauty of their land and the joys of their days, and all the things for which they could be grateful.

The Teleri by contrast had never needed much a reason: They sang as naturally as they breathed air, beauty for the sake of beauty. The Falmari had sang of the ocean, the Nandor and Sindar sang of their trees, and each individual among their various kindreds would sing for all that they treasured.

But whether they dedicated their songs to worthy purposes or regarded them as their own rewards, the idea of doing it for the sake of being good at it would have seemed odd to them insofar as it would have occurred to them.

What were Noldorin songs like? Well most of Aman's elvish citizens could have named the local variant of the alphabet song. Scholars used a plethora of mnemonic devices each with their catchy little tunes.

Dating back to the early days on the shores of Cuivienen before the Tatyar had split into Noldor or Avari, there were a great collection of little songs for the purposes of timekeeping – "If you have to pull of your hand before you're done with the second stanza, it's hot enough to fire your brand new clay pot!" - but these had waned in popularity after the great journey once things like hourglasses and water clocks had been invented.

And then Maglor happened.

He'd first grabbed a harp as a toddler, and managed to produce passably pleasant melodies before he'd mastered the art of talking in complete sentences. He was still a small child when he presented his first unique compositions at court – seeing that he was the King's grandson, people would have applauded one way or another, but the response was far fiercer than that alone would have warranted, and his parents, still united then, could scarcely have been prouder.

Nerdanel was overjoyed to have another artist in the family even if he had chosen a very different medium, and as for Feanor… well, he didn't always phrase things in the most appropriate or diplomatic manner ("Let them say again that our people can't sing!" - "Can _your_ son do this, half-brother?" - "See father? If you wanted someone to sing and play for you, you needn't have married that-") but it was plain to see that the pride shining in his eyes was very much real and genuine, despite the taint of dubious motives at the edges. In a lot of ways, his second son might have turned out quite unlike him, but he understood what it was to be seized by a vision, to be consumed with inspiration, and above all, what it was to put all of oneself in one's work, and to those who understood this, that understanding weighed a lot.

Never mind the king – the Valar themselves would have pulled all strings to get him into just about any fancy music school anywhere in Valinor, including some institutions that had not admitted very many full-blooded Noldor into their halls, but even then he refused them all to stay with his father and mother. It wasn't even that Feanor forbade it, for if he had, Nerdanel would have put her foot down, and he still occasionally listened to her back in those days. Rather it was Maglor himself who was just that loyal.

Even still, by the time he had grown into a youth, he was a widely renowned and frequently discussed household name as a performer, poet and composer. His work had sparked a wave of innovation, a new brand of style and a multitude of scholarly treatises before he so much as reached his majority.

Like all new things, his novel works sparked a wide spectrum of responses, unparalleled as though it was. There was some largely purely academic debate about the merits of sad songs and wether they didn't technically constitute making oneself miserable on purpose.

In a society that had lived in almost complete bliss for over two generations, there wasn't much demand for catharsis – but that in itself made those _different_ songs novel, and above all, the stories held within them were immersive. One might hear the first bars and feel themselves whisked away into another time and place, feeling someone else's feelings, until the song ceased and one felt and appreciated anew all the bliss that they lived in, appreciating the joys of Valinor's noontide all the more from this newfound contrast.

If the previous fashions and other artistic movements of the time were like gold and silver, then the works of Maglor were not at all like that pure shine but instead akin to the most intense, most vibrant colors in their full variety, the bright and the dark, the sweet and the bitter; indeed there had been comparisons to the vivid colors in the tapestries woven by his grandmother and the many gems wrought by his father.

But in those ancient days of bliss, what was there really to write epics about?

Certainly there were the tales of the great journey, and what they'd heard from the Valar and Maiar about the tragedies that had befallen before their time, and if nothing else, even the poets of those earliest days would at least have had their imagination, the capacity to picture worlds other than their own, assembled from those same component blocks of kingdoms and spires, plains and mountains and woods as they found themselves surrounded with.

In a way, Maglor seemed most well-suited for living through the dismal times that it was his lot to experience, to be the one to write it all down and live to tell the tale.

No one could have done it better – not just for his skill in song and poetry, but for the _kind_ of poet he was, adept at capturing feeling and impression in its manifold bittersweet fullness.

What a shame then, what a waste, that his works in those later days were chiefly heard by a troupe of worn soldiers eking out a living, just about enough in number to man the walls of Amon Ereb.

What passing Nandorin travelers might have heard him never forgot for the rest of their lives, but to his followers, his remaining brothers, and even to her who was his wife, the lamentations were more often than not a sharp reminder of their own guilt and all that they had lost, the long ardous tale of how their numbers got to be so diminished.

He didn't know what he would no if they asked him to stop, and thus, they never did – but it was not concern only. For all that it pained them, the people of that lonesome stronghold could not have stood to lose the last semblance of anything beautiful in their lives.

It was like that last image of the peaceful dead before they began to decay, the dark elegance of the dried rosebud, red rose turned black, just before it started to turn mushy, the vile deed that still seemed so distant that it could be viewed with dark fascination, or abandoned ruins that had been forgotten long enough that the eerie silence of them could be beautiful, as it could never have been when the memory of them was still splattered with fresh pain.

There was nothing else he could do for the fallen, or the ones he had wronged.

(As for the songs themselves, he would write them all down in a series of little black notebooks, and one day, he would hand them to the youth who would one day become the first king of Numenor and have minstrels, copyists and libraries to spare and the means to keep many of them being sung to the end of time and back. Centuries later, Numenorean Sailors would sail past the isle of Himling and recall that there was a fortress there once in time of old, and some kind of song dedicated to some lady who reigned there, though no one would know anything about her life, or even who exactly the song was addressed at, seeing as whatever fragmentary records had survived described the lord of that fortress as having been unmarried - and the idea that she was simply the wife of his younger brother was not nearly scandalous enough for the sort of people who liked to engage in such speculations.

As for the future king's brother, he was given something else, something the tales don't speak about. But many thousand year's later, when the Kingdom of Gondor celebrated the return of its rightful king, it is said that his father-in-law played a curious metal harp at the wedding.

And other things were entrusted to the brothers, like an old, bent circlet and a small heap of broken jewelry which almost reduced the mighty Gil-Galad to tears when he received it, and a small chest crammed full of research notes which Celebrimbor almost refused – but in the end he was just too darn curious about the contents, and none too eager to offend these strange half-men who had just declared themselves to be his cousins.

There was also another token, a small piece of parchment with a single poem on it, but this one gift never found its intended recipient.)

**Fifth Act, Seventh Scene**

The first time Maedhros got word of the Jewel's new location, he would hear nothing of it.

"_I want nothing to do with that! Not ever again! It's not worth it!"_

He might have thrown something, or knocked something over, maybe accidentally.

Dearest only really heard the noise through the walls; She didn't grasp what the fuss about until she felt Maglor sitting up besides her and caught a glimpse of his face when she turned around, but then, she knew instantly. They had not yet grown so estranged from each other that she wouldn't recognize that look of foreboding.

A moment ago they had both been turned to the opposite sides of the bed, their feet lingering within the halos of each other's warmth without actually touching. Within moments, their arms found each other in the darkness, for lack of anything else to cling to.

"It's been found, hasn't it?"

"I don't doubt it… I must speak with my brothers."

She didn't know what the two of them might be arguing about. They had always been very close, and she didn't think that either of them desired the jewels overmuch.

But to leave their vow unfulfilled must be its own kind of torment, especially since their obligation to their father was getting to be just about the only thing that they had yet to betray.

All her attempts at going back to sleep and blot out the dreadful waking life that her choices had brought her proved futile, but the time she threw on a gown and walked into the armory, the brothers' discussions seemed to have ended.

On her way, she passed Amras, who walked past her without a word, inscrutable as ever.

The other two looked worn and grieved, and did not seem to be feeling up to meet either each other's gaze or her own.

The first crimson rays of dawn were falling in from the windows, coloring the clouds from beneath.

Maedhros's large frame was still half-wrapped in a field blanket, his gray eyes distant.

Maglor had his face in his hands, though he remained perfectly silent.

Neither acknowledged Dearest' presence at first, but they must have perceived her arrival before she made it past the door arch and had little reason to be surprised at her coming.

Though he was most certainly the more fearsome options, she chose to address Maedhros first, perhaps to spare her own unworthy heart: "So, my lord. How have you chosen?"

"You speak of choice… what choice to we have? What options are even left to us? There is no choice. We have reached a dead end."

Dearest was surprised, but not so much that she made a sound.

"Is it that astounding to hear me say that, sister? Be not afraid. I have no illusion that this absolves me of anything. Having hit a wall now only means that we have missed the right turn sometime in the past. If there was any chance for hope or redemption… yes, perhaps there was such a thing, but we have missed it long ago. Should I not have divided out territories as I did? Should I have kept my little brothers away from the borders of Doriath and closer to our cousins? Should I have ordered that they should flee to Himring if the siege were ever broken? I don't know. I don't think I ever will..."

"We can at least _delay_, brother!" Maglor's voice was quite transparently pleading. "Can we not?"

"We might. We can try, and it might even make a difference. But all it might mean is that we would be at the cost of relinquishing control over how and when our hand might be forced."

"How… did it all turn out like this? How did everything end up so messed up?

It wasn't always like this… don't you remember all the time we spent as visitors in the halls of Aule? We weren't always enemies. And father was always very particular and sometimes difficult, but he treasured us, and our brothers… He never considered Lord Fingolfin to be his brother, but he didn't always outright loathe him, much less hate him to the point to go around threatening him with a sword – after all, he was still our kinsman, and an honorable man. He had already lost a son of his own by then, and Turgon's wife, but you should have seen his face when he heard that you were captured- ...what happened?"

"Morgoth. Morgoth happened." said Maedhros, at the end of all his hopes: "His very essence is distortion and discord. What's more, I would wager that the only reason he hasn't wiped us off the map yet is that he thinks we're more useful to him alive. I expect that he'll pick us off as soon as we act... We once made our vow in defiance to him, but all this time, with all our efforts… we've been doing little more than dancing in the palm of his hand. I thought I has escaped him, but most likely, we were all snared in his webs before we he ever laid a hand on any of us – and not just us, but all the others, too. Except that their only fault was that they wouldn't leave us. Fingon and Aredhel wouldn't let us go to our deaths, Turgon wouldn't leave _them_, and Finrod and the others wouldn't go back without them. And now they're all gone because of us.

I thought that was our saving grace, that we had staid united despite the strife between our fathers… now I wish I had listened to father and kept my distance… At least then we would have found our doom all on our own. Yet I know that if he were here, he would say that he would not wish our friendship unmade for anything – what a sorry friend I've turned out to be."

"From the beginning...Have done _anything_ out of our own free will?!"

"We chose to forswear our freedom. We tied our own hands and threw away the keys. We chose to believe the lies. Because we wanted to believe them. Because they were ever so convenient. Because they would have made everything so much _easier_ if they had been true, so much less confusing and complicated... Father was a scholar and an inventor – he was used to looking at things in terms of cause and effect, action and reaction, exact prerequisites and desired results. He used to make everything bend to his will. Steel, people – even light itself, the most unbending substance of all which only ever travels in straight lines. It was easier to blame it all on Lord Fingolfin or the Valar or Lady Indis than to accept that some things are simply beyond anyone's control. There's no fixing that. There's no fighting that – Not anymore than you could hold back the tides with your bare hands."

Maglor had no reply to this, and the silence lasted long before his wife dared to speak:

"Then what do you propose we should do?"

"The only thing that is _left_ for us to do. We wait. For the inevitable."

**Fifth Act, Eighth Scene**

"I've told you before, little brother. I wish nothing more to do with this undertaking, and I repent that I ever agreed to it in the first place – and I'm sure Maglor feels just the same. It's hopeless."

"It's been _hopeless_ from the first and you damn well know it! You don't get to do this Maedhros, and most certainly not now, after all this! If we were just going to turn back, then what was it all _for? _Why did we come here to this desolate land and waste our lives on this endless, pointless fight? What did we leave mother for? Why did we end up like this, become _this? _Bloodstained, hated and reviled by all? Why did our brothers have to die then, if it's all _hopeless_?

There's only three of us left. Three of us! So I reckon that one of those accursed jewels is mine, and I'm going to go and claim it on my own if I have to!"

But that was the one thing that Maedhros would never have allowed his youngest brother to do, even if it would make no difference to his eventual fate.

"Look, we'll send a messenger. Stress that we don't want an escalation any more than they do, offer our friendship-"

They all remembered how that had gone the last time. Maglor in particular could scarcely hide his dismay, but neither did he show much indication that he meant to speak out against it.

Sitting beside him wrapped in the same tattered old blanket, Dearest felt the world spinning all around her, as surely as if the old floorboards of the fortress had given out beneath her.

After all that happened, all the pain, all the regret, she saw them all cascading down the same old path, tumbling down, down, down, though they all knew better.

Despite herself, she rose to her feet, for the lack of a better word, incensed:

"No. Nopenopenopenopenope…. This cannot be happening. You cannot be serious about it.

Have you all gone mad? You know better. You're better than this. For many years now, I've seen you all _agonizing_ over what happened in Doriath, and now you want to do it again? You don't have to do this!"

"No. _You_ don't have to do this." said Amras, his face unreadable, but his voice betraying something curiously like tired exasperation. "We do. That's the whole _point _of the oath."

Faced with a stone wall, she turned to the older brothers:

"My love. My lord. _Please_ say something."

"We will try and speak with Princess Elwing. Sister, you know we don't want for this to come to blows-"

"_Then act like it!"_

The dam had broken.

In that very moment, something had shattered into a thousand pieces that could never be put back.

"We killed that girl's father. You know as well as I do that she's not going to give you the Silmaril any more than you three would have handed it to Gothmog on a platter!"

Gothmog was, of course, destroyed at this point, by the hands of someone other than they.

"We can't do this. Not again…

Last time we were fighting a hostile army. They had grounds to say we had wronged them, we had grounds to say that they wronged us – For the most part they were soldiers, and even then we got some innocent children caught up in the mess.

But the people in Sirion… they're _refugees. _Civilians. It would be a massacre! And they're not just from Doriath, but from all across Beleriand. It's the last speck of civilization between the sea and the mountains – it's like the world is ending, and we're going to fight each other to the death over the scraps?! There are survivors from _Gondolin_ there. _Our _people. Your rightful subjects, Lord Maedhros! You're their King! Their _King!_"

She appealed to him then because though she was disgusted to be forced to admit it, she saw no chance of her husband's going against him.

"I have not asked anyone to call me that in a long, long time, sister."

"Ah! I see then! I see!" Seeing as she had no more right to disbelief after all she had witnessed, she whipped herself into some ugly, sardonic hybrid abomination somewhere between righteous fury and scathing vindictiveness, like a blister that had burst at long last.

"If _that's_ how you were going to value the lives of your subjects, then perhaps it's a good thing that you ceded the crown to Fingolfin! So are you telling me then that you would wash your hand not just of me, but of all your followers who have gone with you loyally? No loss to you then, if we happened to build our little dreams on your selfish quest then, and then chose to be disappointed, you'll still take our swords and our lives for it, won't you?!

Good stars! To think that I once thought you to be the noblest man in Beleriand! Fine then! Have it your way! You shall be no king of _mine_ anymore! How about a brother then?

Princess Elwing might be the child of our enemies, but she is also the wife of Turgon's only grandson. _Turgon_, who supported our alliance even though we got the mother of his child killed! Is that how you repay him? Is that how you repay Fingon for saving your life? By making his nephew a widower?

If Elwing is nothing to you, then neither am I!"

The words connected like blows. Valiant they were, unflappable and tested in furious battle, and quite used to being reviled, but this was one of the few people they had opened their hearts to, who had access to their thought just as a function of being someone whose thought and counsel they once valued.

They must have perceived then that they had reached a turning point, that this was not just a desperate lashing, but an ultimatum.

"Dearest, I-"

When Maglor reached out with his arms to offer comfort that she was not altogether inclined to reject, she made herself back away like one burnt, flinching from what she knew she would never be able to resist if she did not keep pace with the momentum of her storm.

Often it is said that people in adversity are apt to say things that they don't mean, but in Dearest's life experience it was rather the opposite: That long-held resentments and dissatisfaction that had been long silence for the sake of politeness, compassion or the pursuit of distinct goals would come see the light of day if one was enraged enough to no longer care about the consequences of revealing them, or no longer inclined to be so kind, all the things that one always wanted to say, but also always held back, all the things one thought one would not mind, or could easily live with, until one day one could not, bursting out like the inside of an overcooked sausage.

So there would have been no use in taking them back.

"Oh shut up! Shut up shut up shut up! Don't you dare come near me, you least of all!"

But even as she declared this, her eyes filled with tears.

"Oh Kanafinwe Makalaure, oh Maglor, accursed son of Feanor! Bane of all the joy in my life!

I have left my home, renounced my parents, lived through centuries of strife and even spilled innocent blood, and all because I believed in you and your brothers, in your cause- and in _you_.

I thought you were worth it! That you were worth _anything_ I might have to endure – I used to think that I didn't care the slightest bit if I was happy, as long as my deeds had meaning, and my path was chosen by none but myself, but no further could I be from those goals!

It's not that I didn't mind giving – it's that 'give' and 'take' was the wrong way to think about it, more fit for a merchant's table than for love. Being part of something great would have been its own reward-

Oh why couldn't you be _worth it-_

And _you!_ Can't you take responsibility for once in your life?"

He probably wanted to comfort her, seeing her standing there shaking with her rage and her tears. All of them wanted to – even Amras couldn't look quite impassive.

But it was no longer any of their place, not even Maglor's, not when he was the very thing she seemed to need consolation _about. _

But even in this hour of evident pain she was not quite done; No matter what her heart felt, the chief thought in her mind was that they were all going to their deaths, and so she forced herself to look up, step forward, and take Maglor's tentatively extended hands in her own, firmly but not brusquely.

At least they were shaking, even sweaty, his fine-boned long fingers with their characteristic pattern of calluses.

"_Swear_ to me. _Vow_ to me as surely as the first time, that when you go to Sirion to seek your jewel, you will not draw your swords, and you will not spill any blood.

Do that, and I will throw all my pride away, and all of my dignity, and all shall be forgiven and forgot. I will come with you, and I shall help you in any way I can, and do all in my power to see to your right. I will beg before Elwing on my knees. I'll blare in her ears day and night until she grows sick of me. I would even find some way to steal it like some petty thief if I have to - I'll use any means, as long as they are bloodless.

Promise me that you will not abide any killing."

"I… I'm afraid that I cannot..."

"Then you shall have one less vow to worry about, for I renounce you."

She renounced his house as well, and all allegiance to it.

The matchless Sword she had been given she left pinned into the ground before her before she even turned to leave.

But let it not be thought that she had left with her head held high, secure in her righteousness and convinced that it was all for the better, nor could she muster the pride to look down on them in scorn and judgment.

Once expressed, her penned-up anger hat evaporated quickly, giving way to the pain beneath – and naught but pain did she feel as she tore her gaze away from the last remnants of what had been her only family for many hundreds of years; She could have felt nothing else, not when they all looked so terribly lost and done for, one last glimmer of embers in the encroaching darkness.

Maedhros looked thoroughly defeated, as if he had expected to other outcome.

He knew he had no grounds on which to defend himself, so he didn't even cry.

Amras almost seemed relieved on her behalf, insofar as his expression could be read, but she thought that he might have addressed her with a near imperceptible nod.

And Maglor -

She wanted to loathe him, she wanted to to be disgusted and disappointing and all that,

but coexisting with all of that, he was still beautiful.

As beautiful as he'd ever been, if he had not reached new height of his tragic, melancholy allures in the hectic glow of his pain, marked with the figurative the blood that she alone had drawn from him.

Looking at him now she could still see everything she had seen when he played his song at that ball, very narrowly short of a good thousand years ago, and far, far more, the days of joint hardship, the diamond beneath, and all the flowers that had bloomed in adversity.

She had studied that face inside and out, got to know every crook of it time and time again, perceived most of its hidden meanings – you could find more than enough to love about most anyone if you got to know them well enough, which is likely why most people love their families, and he had been more than just deserving – And now that she knew that she could not, would not follow him, the sight of him revealed only all that she would have to give up.

One way or another he would probably have found _someone_ and sung his songs to them, but as it had just so happened he'd chosen her, and all the time, she never quite believed it, not because of any insecurities, but because he had always seemed _too much_ to be held or kept by any one person, at least not for long -

Something about him was always sublime and singular, and she knew in her heart that there would never again be anyone like him, not in her life, and not in the world, and even back then she thought it would be worth it – and now that it was over, despite everything, she could not deny that it was.

Tearing away from someone as radiant, as incandescent as him was akin to – yes. Like letting go of a stone imbued with unsullied light from the beginning of creation, the most incomparable of treasures. She thought him no less precious; Now if only old Feanor had paused to take stock of what he still had before losing himself chasing after all that he lost – but he was lost so long ago in distant days that only few remembered now, and there would be no going back to the days when the shine of Laurelin and Telperion would light up all the sky – the light itself had never been the problem, for it was holy light, as pure as it could be. It's only when people thought of locking it in their coffers beyond their allotted turn with it that the problems got started -

So she decided that her turn was finished, and that she could no longer hold on.

**Fifth Act, Ninth Scene**

But it was not for nothing that the brothers considered themselves to have burnt far too many bridges to have a shot at turning back.

The bulk of Beleriand's population had always been made up of Sindar – and men, once their numbers had the time to increase. She whom Maglor never stopped thinking of as his dearest might have repudiated her house, but it was still her and no one else who had slain countless of their brethren. As far as her own reckoning was concerned, she was little more than just another fugitive.

Her face and name were not widely known, but though she'd spent all night pulling the threads out the front of her gown, but the empty space which the deconstructed embroidery had left behind still had the shape of an eight-pointed star, and she didn't think that she would have much better luck running naked.

Even Noldorin settlements might be off-limits now, considering what her husband had been about to do when he took his leave. If she was apprehended, could she even hope to be granted the time to explain herself? If she said that she had no part in the attack on the Havens, would she be believed? After what she did in Doriath, would anyone even care? She was guilty all the same.

All-too briefly she considered if she might partially atone by rushing ahead and bringing warning of the attack, but given the pitiful size of their remaining forces, whatever strategy the brothers would have mounted must have been highly dependent on deception and stealth – revolting orc-work really, or petty thievery at best. If she revealed their purpose to their enemies, their lives would surely be forfeit, and while she might have turned her back on them and washed her hands of their fates, she could not find it in her to betray them outright.

Though she would have liked to have the strength to be above it, her old love for Maglor still stung her heart, as did her fondness for his family, useless as it might have have been to either herself or them, but her thoughts were quickly derailed by the realization that they would have set out on horseback. Try as she might, she could not possibly have caught up to them on foot, nor had she brought provisions. Now it would have been wholly in her power to march through the nights and make do without stopping to procure herself some edibles, but even then she had only the slimmest odds of even so much as catching up to them, so she tarried instead, dreading what she would find at the road's end.

The moment she was spotted by the scouts of the high king, she was speedily tackled to the ground, cast in irons and dragged before the king after a long and awkward boat ride to the isle of Balar, which she spent bound and gagged in the vault of a ship, thrown into a lightless corner as it would befit a serial kinslayer – but she cared no longer.

She had no intentions other than to yield, bend the knee to Gil-Galad and to see what sort of judgment he should have in store for her, for she did not suppose that she would be earning herself any leniency by defending the indefensible – and above all she was tired, having left because there was nothing in her heart left to give.

When she was led by the guards before the throne, she struggled to recognize the little boy from Fingon's letters – Little Ereinion. But of course, he had not been called by this name in ages; In the years after he had ascended the throne, he had come to be known as only _Gil-Galad_, the last shining light in this world swallowed by darkness.

He had grown up fast by necessity in the chaos of these uncertain times, he stood tall and resplendent amid dark blue banners marked with a wide field of stars. Silver ornaments scintillated off his long dark hair, glittering on his brow, and down his neck like crystals of ice.

He was the spitting image on Fingolfin – though perhaps he would have shown something like his father's easy laughter if he wasn't facing down one of the butchers of Doriath.

The subjects now entrusted to his protection had come from all possible corners of Beleriand; Many of them were Sindar, and it was on him to maintain the precarious balance between the various factions – but diplomacy aside it was hard to imagine that he would have looked kindly on any associate of the ones who had plundered the havens, nor was he the only one here.

Befitting of the noble and honorable House of Fingolfin, he had spared her the gawking spectators, but seated all along the walls were the members of his court, attendants, guardsmen, officials and functionaries in many important position, and last but not least his lords and his advisors sitting beside him in high chairs.  
As their prisoner was being led to the center of the audience hall where the emblem of the royal house formed the center of the stone mosaic on the floor, it struck her that most of the ones present were younger than her – of the ones that appeared to be Noldor, most bore only an echo of the light in their eyes, distinct from those like herself that had seen the ancient light in full.

So many great, worthy luminaries were now gone from their midst, including, of course, the kings of bygone days.

But not all witnesses of days past had vanished. Right beside the king was a silver-haired elf of great dignity, seated at his right, and though he was a Sinda, and of course as untouched by decay as any other of the Elder Children, the onetime wife of Maglor could perceive that he was venerable and ancient even compared to her, and herself as but a little girl before him. He must have been here since the dawn of time, except that back in his day no one would have called it that, for there were no dawns yet. Perhaps he was this famed shipwright whom she had heard so much about, which meant of course that Earendil had been his protegé, and the settlement at the havens something like his home.

There _was_ at least one familiar face, however – though the fugitive _felt_ her before she saw her in the crowd, crowned with that unmistakable gold-and-silver hair, with her tall, silver-haired Sinda prince sitting stone-faded beside her. It could be supposed that there was no mercy to be expected from _him – _ even the request for it would be counted as an insult from the lips of one who had come before him red-handed from the slaughter of his kin.

As for his lady, she considered it her duty and obligation, of course, to scour the contents of a potential enemy's head for any hint of deception, and there was no hesitation, not when it was all so very easy for her. The prisoner had had enough experiences with the singularly gifted to know better than to think there would be a point in resisting and laid it all bare. Her only token half-hearted efforts at concealing anything went to the ratty mental fig leaf that she hastily cast over the traces of lingering tenderness for the husband she had deserted, but just in case that she could have been trying to conceal something of relevance, Galadriel pushed those paltry defenses aside and sighted what was beneath it, moving on almost immediately when she found nothing of note.

Only then when she was certain did she speak, "My lord, I know this woman-"

And thus ended all hope of passing herself off as an ordinary deserter.

A murmur went through the crowd when the daughter of Finarfin revealed this windswep soldier as the wife of Maglor.

Some of the onlookers scarcely seemed to believe that their loathsome enemy ever _had_ a wife, as if it boggled their mind to even fathom how anyone would ever consent to wed even _one_ of the seven sons, or why anyone would – and to think that the common question had once been the very opposite, that the people in the streets of Tirion had been whispering in wonderment about how it could be that such handsome princes as Maedhros and Celegorm had gone unclaimed for so long -

But anyone who wished to marry that branch of the family would have had to arrange themselves a difficult law-father and quite a handful of prospective brothers; They would need to be ready to take up their old-fashioned style of speech and the family's nomadic lifestyle. They would have had to live with the knowledge that the loyalty of their husband would always be first and foremost to Feanor and The Clan. Contestants with any measure of Vanyarin or Telerin blood need not apply, and if the suitors weren't one of the Crown Prince's most ardent supporters, they better be ready to stay out of politics -

All such things considered, it should be no surprise that only three out of seven had ever found somebody willing. In the end, she who had been the first such candidate had found that she reached a point where she could endure it no longer, and already thus humbled, she had little to lose from getting on her knees and suing for pardon, on all fours with her head bowed low.

No one was too surprised at her desertion – later she would learn that even during the battle itself, members of the Feanorian army had turned against their own lords when they beheld the senseless violence or perhaps even recognized familiar faces in the crowds.

It was generally taken as a sign of the hopeless times, and most such turncoats were already so ashamed of themselves that there that the king found little need to instill further remorse by means of punishment, and thought it best to put them to work rather than to compound the labor shortage by having to post guards before their cells. Most had been capable warriors and artisans well-seasoned in the arts of desperate survival, such that their labor would actually constitute useful atonement – and with the degree of shunning that they were to expect, it stood to reason that they would be humbled enough.

The King wanted to _encourage_ the people to turn from the path of folly, not deter them from it with threats of harsh repercussion. Most he placed in modest accommodations, with a policy of having new arrivals watched for suspicious activity for the duration of some initial trial period, but those who happened to have any family members or friends still willing to take them in would be placed with those relatives.

The prisoner's surprise was great when she heard that one such person had been found willing to collect her. She didn't know who it was until the moment they released her from her jail cell, for insofar as she knew, what few relations she had had all stayed behind in Valinor.

She heard the rustling of layered robes and the clang of fine jewelry – a noble then?

But one the jail doors were flung open, all her questions fell away.

"Celebrimbor!"

"Auntie!"

Now unbeknownst to his aunt, the wayward prince had prepared a speech, both for the officials, and for her, and he had all the intention of being mad at her and being heart saying that her belated redemption did little to erase her crimes, but he meant to argue convincingly to anyone who was listening that he did think her repentance ought to count for something, and that he believed this on principle and not at all because of his own situation or because he was any way swayed by undue sentiment towards the accused.

But for better or for worse, the house of Feanor had been a very close-knit family – it barely counted as a saving grace when it was merely a consequence of their general tendency for unwarranted suspicion, pointless antagonism and reckless disavowment of responsibility towards anybody else, but as a simple consequence of their idiosyncratic wandering about the countryside was that when Curufin procured himself a son, all his brothers and law-sisters had pitched in to some degree to help mind the child, and that they all had their delight in him – mostly Celegorm, who later shared a territory with the boy's parents, but the whole lot had spent much time about him.

His eldest aunt, if she had been told to expect him, would not assume that he would have retained all that much fondness for her, who had followed the questionable quest of his house for much longer than he, but the moment she saw him for the first time in decades, having long been uncertain of his fate, the light welling up in her heart overcame her doubt and reason, and so before he knew it, Prince Celebrimbor – now actually one of the _senior_ noblemen in Gil Galad's court, with big reputations to both maintain and avoid – found himself… well, I believe the correct technical term would be 'glomped'.

But he really needn't have worried. Any witnesses of the spectacle were much more likely to have been moved to pity rather than contempt or suspicion.

The guards who had raised their arms in alarm at her sudden motion could only shake their heads when she descended into shaky sobs almost the moment that she grasped him with her arms.

"You're alive! At least you! At least you have been spared from that terrible oath!"

And despite the thick walls he had built up between his heart any halfway positive feelings he'd ever had for his family, cemented, as it was, by a fear of going down that same horrendous path, he understood her, and made no move to chide her further.

Instead he took her to his hall – little more than an upscale dwelling in the smith's quarters of Gil-Galad's capital, never meant to be more than a temporary abode. The king had subtly nudged him towards something befitting his station, but all in all he had not given much thought to the choice of anything other than the forge on the ground floor, which was the best he could find.

He pointed her to a dusty guest room he never really used, and while it was readied, showed her to the library, as he still remembered her preferences, though most of his prodigious collection consisted of non-fiction, shelves upon shelves of voluminous treatises on metals, crystals and the like. He actually managed to save a case full of Gondolin's leading craftsman's journals – apparently he had actually gone through the trouble of searching out his favorite editions as the city was being sacked, and though she was no longer officially a senior member of his house, she couldn't help but feel honor-bound to scold him;

If his mother could be here, she would surely have given him an earful about how he's supposed to run _away from_ and not _towards_ things that promise swift and fiery death.

But reckless or otherwise, he gave her a home and there she stayed, and did not come forth often, knowing she would not be very welcome in the city, and rightfully so.

The streets were still choked with survivors from Doriath and Sirion.

She just counted herself lucky for the mercy she'd been given and felt no wish to try her luck any further – her appetite for great deeds was altogether spent.

Not so Celebrimbor! He said he was glad to have somebody to dine with and keep him company, but that was often the extent of their interaction, for he kept very busy, and when he wasn't called upon to solve technical problem for the king, he'd be downstairs in his forge, and sometimes, she'd barely catch a glimpse of him for days.

It would seem that even two generations down the line, some of his bloodline's relentless fire still endured, though in all honesty, both of his parents had been all but filled with ambition and tenacity.

He might try his best to keep a hold on it and temper it with wisdom and humility, but he could not change his true nature – nor would she think that he really wanted to, too genuine was his delight in his creations. Perhaps he would have more success in chanelling his sheer creative forces towards noble, worthy uses.

His passion, at least, was undeniable, and reminded her bittersweetly of his family in the days when she first got swept up in their pursuits.

It was not like he remained untouched by the total ruin of his family and his former home, but somehow he had managed to preserve his enthusiasm and love of knowledge through it all.

When he emerged, from his work, sometimes needing to be tactfully reminded to maybe take off his apron and rid his hands of all the soot before coming to lunch, he never ran out of tales to tell, speaking endlessly of his work, his latest ideas or any random pondering that came to his mind.

"They say that they have this… material, in the homeland of the dwarves. Looks like silver, but harder than any steel, and light as tinfoil. What wouldn't I give to get my hands on a good, sizable sample… The thing you could _do_ with something like that! Think of the potential Auntie! If I could, I would mount an expedition right now, but as it stands, all the roads are choked with orcs and werewolves!"

The very thought of expeditions brought up a flurry of memories.

"Are you alright?" he asked, unconcerned by the morsel hanging precariously off his fork.

In his occasional scatterbrained obliviousness when distracted by the subjects of his passion, he was almost painfully like Maglor. Curufin himself had been altogether more dignified overall, but for all his flaws and lies and masks and shemes, the light in his eyes when he spoke about his work or his research was always sincere and genuine. At least in that one respect, father and son were almost painfully alike.

"Yes, yes, dear. I just… I hope that you will get your expedition. Someday, when this is all over, and this world knows piece again. I hope that you go forth and see this world, and live free under this sky as your own ruler, and that you will make countless beautiful things with that dwarf-silver of yours- I don't think I shall ever see it – not with the blood on my hands, but – It is the dearest wish of my heart that you shall see our hopes come true… our _real_ hopes, before everything got tainted."

Then one evening, as they sat together at the table, next to the intricate glass doors leading out to an elegant balcony that loomed high over the streets, their eyes glanced past the sky only to find it lit with one star too many.

At once, they recognized that light, for none who had lived under its glow in the distant spring of history could ever have forgotten it.

Here was the radiance that Illuvatar had entrusted to Varda, which Varda poured into the lamps made my Aule, which, when they were broken, left behind the meltwater that Yavanna would use to water the two trees as she and Nienna went about growing them – a little of which now still glimmered around the sun and moon, but which in its untainted form untouched by Ungoliant's venom remained only in three crystaline vessels wrought by the greatest craftsman who ever lived.

She had seen them a few times briefly, though towards the later days at Formenos, she was made to wait at the doors of the vault whenever it was Maglor's turn to view them, and while Celebrimbor would surely have been allowed inside, he was very young then, perhaps too young to trust his senses now:

"Is that… could that possibly be..."

"It _must_ be. It's the _L__ight_\- The Light of the Trees!"

In the span of a heartbeat they had scrambled out the doors, and had they not both been there to support each other, there might have been some chance that one or both would have tumbled from the balcony, so shaky were their feet.

But without the pane of glass, out in the cool nighttime air with the scent of the sea still in the air, there could be no doubt that it was indeed _the_ capital-L Light from _the_ capital-T Trees, and none could have denied it, least of all those who had grown up under its shine in the long lost innocence of their early days.

"You know, some might say that this is your inheritance up there, oath or no oath… you're not thinking to pursue it, are you?"

Celebrimbor shook his head, prompting his aunt to exhale a deep sigh of relief. "It never truly was ours, Auntie… Whichever vessel it might be in, this light is older than my grandfather, older than all our kind, or even the world itself – It comes only from Illuvatar. When grandfather made the gems, it was just our turn to keep it, nothing more - until it wasn't. Now, I suppose, it is finally back where it belonged, for who but the Valar could have put it there? Though I do not see for what purpose."

"You forget that, if it _is_ from Illuvatar, it's older than _them_, also… And now the one who holds it is half man, the son of one who has come to be without either them _or _us. You know, your grandfather was not… quite right, about many things, but about others, he was not altogether wrong."

"What do you mean by that?" he asked, more sharply than he intended, perhaps in the fear that she would proceed to reiterate some of the old heresies he had long renounced.

"Isn't it apparent? I thought you would have been the first to figure it out. They're coming here. What else could it mean? It's just as Lord Feanor once said. They have heard of our deeds and marveled at them so much that they've decided to follow us. When I was young, I used to read these stories, about the last days before the great journey, when the one who wrote the book – my own grandmother, indeed – would see the distant fires shining in the skies and feel the tremors of the earth, and when she reached the blessed realm, she learned that it was fighting leading up to the first capture of Morgoth. That star up there is a sign that they have not forsaken us – and I would keep watch and expect many more lights in the skies."

"A sign of hope, you say..."

What he didn't say was: For everyone but _us_.

Of course they recognized the Light. Of course it lifted something up in their spirits – such was its nature. From this long distance away, only the radiance could be seen, not the casing; The stone that held it was but a triviality, a means to an end.

Oh, but the stone!

All around them in the streets, the people were rushing out the doors or running to their balconies, united in a newly-kindled hope. Off in the distance, all across the town, circles of song were already beginning to form, the elder survivors explaining to their children, the most destitute of fugitives crying the most sparkling tears of joy.

They all saw only light, only the victory of heroes against dreadful odds, and spoke the names of Earendil and Elwing like holy words of blessing.

Of all the people witnessing this sacred moments, only two gave much thought to the foes that had put them in such adversity; Only two thought not only of the light, but of the vessel, all the blood that had been spilled for its sake, and not the least of the complete ruin of their house.

So perhaps it was a specially ordained mercy that they were together when the new star first rose, crumpled against the smooth metal guardrails of their balcony, crying into each other's arms as the crows cheered.

"You know, I think in some way that is what he would have wanted – at least at first. Maglor told me once, that he said- He said he felt that something was coming. That our blissful days would not last forever."

Face streaked with tears, Celebrimbor smiled without mirth. "So he tried to prevent it, and then he made it happen with his own hands… Morgoth must be laughing at us… That's all we've ever accomplished, isn't it?"

"Is it? Because I see the light still shining up there, _despite_ Morgoth. And now the whole world can see it, not just Valinor."

Hearing this, Celebrimbor did not know what to answer, and sat back thoughtfully against the balcony rails. There was something like a change in his eyes, like the first stirrings of an idea that would not fully mature for many, many years. "So he wanted to _preserve_ the light… "

"...if I got the gist of what Maglor once told me. It's not like Lord Feanor ever spoke to me of his innermost thoughts. You know how he was. But I like to think that he would be glad if he could see this – though I suppose that he might not like that it's a descendant of Lord Fingolfin's ferrying the jewel across the sky-"

"He'll just have to get over it. He and father both."

At that point their laughter, though tearful, mingled with the cheers of the crowd below, and at length even they could not help but to be glad for the star-shine.

**Fifth Act, Tenth Scene**

But there were two more jewels remaining.

As what would be known as the War of Wrath raged on, lights-in-the-sky and all, Gil-Galad and his subjects were forced to leave behind the isle of Balar to gather near to the mountains, where in later days the kingdom of Lindon would be founded.

Celebrimbor and his aunt were right with them.

Mournfully they passed the half-sunken remains of Thargelion. They never came within sight of Himring, or the peaks surrounding lake Helevorn, but the sting of painful memories made themselves felt through the distance – many of them had been _fond_ memories once, but like the land itself, they had been tainted by the sins that had come after.

Their trail passed within walking distance of Amon Ereb, but in her heart the one-time beloved of Maglor knew that if she went alone, and found them there, she would never return – and if she told Celebrimbor to sneak out and see them with her, he would have perceived this and betrayed her intentions to the rest of their companions, for her own good; Even if he had wanted to see his uncles, he would not have done so in secret. And if they brought the whole party, it would end well for no one, as many of them had lost friends and relatives at the mouths of Sirion. Her presence had already compelled her nephew to make sure that he would be travelling with a group of mostly Noldor with a few Edain thrown in, and she had imposed on him enough as it was.

So they made their way to Gil-Galad's new settlement and had their part in raising it from a tent city into a proper one, preparing to receive the countless refugees that were undoubtely due to keep flowing in, if they weren't being too optimistic about their odds of survival – between the destruction wrought by the forces of Morgoth and the hosts of the Valar, what remained of Beleriand had soon turned into a rapidly collapsing death trap.

One day it came to pass that the armies of Valinor sent an envoy into their settlement.

For many of its inhabitants, it should be the first time and the last that they saw a full-blooded Vanya – a shining, golden-haired general wrapped in jewels and silks that bore the fresh gleam of the blessed realm.

Had she looked a bit like that once, when she came out of the west? It was hard to believe. From the ground he walked on to the people that came out to stare, he made everything he touched look dirty, old and ugly by comparison. He had been sent to rendezvous with the local forces, establish supply lines and procure intelligence.

The king bade him to tell Prince Ingwion that he had surely found the locals, but that they had no forces left to speak of. The Valar sent other messengers, though most of them would be from the army's Edain contingent. The story was that the hosts of Valinor had met up with a surprisingly well-organized remnant force composed of great parts of Beleriand's Mannish population, headed by a mysterious young man who was thought to be the long-lost chieftain of Dor-Lomin returned – but how might that be? That line was long-since ended, the closest thing to a surviving scion might have been… Well, Tuor, son of Huor, Son of Galdor, also known as the father of Earendil, but he was long since thought to have been lost at sea, and would be mighty old for a Man if he still lived.

But by far the most unbelievable part of the tale must have been nonsensical yet persistent rumor that this mysteriously returned young lord of the Edain and his no less renowned younger brother each wielded a long, dark double-edged sword marked with an eight-pointed star.

Between the need to construct more permanent dwellings and Gil-Galad's commitment to do what little he could to supply the war effort, Celebrimbor's talents were in high demand and his hands were seldom at rest.

If anyone inquired about the quiet hooded figure sticking close by in a corner of the room, he would explain her as his widowed aunt by marriage who had no one else to look after her.

But in truth, neither of them knew for sure whether or not Maglor and Maedhros were still alive.

Eventually they acquired themselves a house, but that, too, felt like a temporary solution – had Celebrimbor meant to stay there for long, then surely everything metal or crystal in it would have been made by his own hands. Instead, he simply procured the next-best solution for the problem of needing some place for eating and sleeping and the keeping of their things.

While he worked, his aunt unpacked what little they managed to carry and, for lack of anything else to do, took the time to make it nice and presentable.

When there was nothing left to decorate or unpack, she took up writing her tales again, though she was nobody's lady and had no knights to read it to, nor would she have grandchildren to which to tell the stories, or to whom to describe the lights in the burning sky and the shaking earth like her own grandmother did for her. But perhaps that made it that much more that she write it all down, so that someday, someone _would _hear the tale from her mouth, but for now, she kept the sheets in a neat pile in the drawer of her brand new nightstand.

Then one day the fires stopped, and the tremors erupted in one last extravagant quake before fading to nothing.

Then another messenger came, bringing tidings of victory, and the summons to come west: There was to be a general pardon for the rebellion.

Having seen the desolate land, the Valar most likely could not fathom how anyone who had lived through this might be anything other than sufficiently punished.

But though the Valar might show mercy for those who had scorned them, she who was known as the Tale-Weaver back in the sunken land was not sure if she would ever forgive herself.

Even so, she took one of the first ships back to Valinor – or rather, the first of those whose crew was willing to ferry her after learning who she was.

There was nothing left for her in Middle Earth – looking out at it, she could only see her own regrets. Celebrimbor was here, but she figured that he would be fine on his own, especially now that there was some chance that he might actually get that mining expedition going – she would only slow him down, and besides she had no desire to go, not anymore.

Even if the lands beyond the mountains would be new and fresh to her, she would find it hard not to think of how much Maglor and the others would have liked to see them, had they not been tied down by their terrible vows.

She bid him farewell, and as a parting gift, she asked of him only that he go forth and find the freedom that herself and his elders had long pursued in vain.

As for the bundle of writings in her nightstand: Those she took with her, so if her tales were told at all, they would only be known across the sea.

* * *

The end!

Feel free to imagine that they all eventually got happy endings in Valinor, if it makes you feel better.

That, or gimme a sec to cobble up the epilogue.

End Notes:

I've seen takes where the spouses refused to come along or died tragically at some point but that's basically already what happened with Finrod and Turgon respectively, and since the story of the Feanorians is mostly a classical tragedy, the variant where whatever happens is a roundabout result of their own actions/ happens dynamically during the story seemed to be the most fitting one; At the same time I didn't want to make it too simple or unambiguous and for the ladies to also be done in by varying levels of character flaws.

But mostly my starting point was looking at each of the brothers who reportedly had spouses and thinking, "Okay, what sort of person would be particularly drawn to this one?"

There was still an unexpected amount of Maedhros stealing the spotlight because I just think he's neat and have had a special weakness for redheads since fourth grade.

It has since come to my attention that there's a passage in HoME 10 where it's said that Celebrimbor's mom stayed behind in Aman, implying that that's she's where he got his morals from, meaning that this version might not be strictly canon compliant – but I did want at least one of the spouses to be a bit of a jerk on par with some of the spicier brothers.

Well, there's a bajillion versions of everything anyways, though – still, I suppose if I had known I could've flipped it around and given Caranthir the somewhat jerkish wife.

Well, luckily amazon has since delivered all the HoME volumes to my house so maybe there will be more feelsvent fic as I make my way through them. Though I feel like after this drama package I owe both you and myself some tooth-rotting fluff in which the entire House of Finwe forms a ginormous cuddle pile or something.


	7. (Appendix I)

One day something I write is not going to balloon into a wall of text, but that day is not yet come.

* * *

(the appendices)

'_but one thing is not said: that we shall suffer from cowardice, from cravens or the fear of cravens. Therefore I say that we will go on, and this doom I add: the deeds that we shall do shall be the matter of song until the last days of Arda'_

_\- a certain disaster Elf we all know and love_

**Appendix I, Section a)**

To one who had left long before the moon first rose, the sight of Tirion beneath its silver disk would have been utterly bizarre.

The sky was most certainly brighter than it had been in those last days of pitch-black utter night, but still much dimmer than it had been under the light of Telperion, and where it's radiance had once flooded the heavens and suffused the land below, the moon now threw the slender cone of its light from a clear direction, casting shadows in all others and leaving a sea of blackness beyond the reach of its halo of light – with the stars still twinkling behind it, the lone traveler beneath find it hard to believe that she had truly reached Valinor.

Here was the shining city on the hill – with its tower, and its tree, its famed crystal stairs, and all its many fountains.

The immaculate spires of Tirion looked entirely foreign, and yet, exactly the same, just at she last saw them, indeed many of them unchanged since she ran down the cobblestone passageways and danced beneath the arches as a little girl, even though the windows that still had lights burning behind them were far and in-between.

Much of the town must be empty still since she did not think that the remnant left behind could have multiplied a tenfold in less than six-hundred years and filled all the empty buildings which herself and the other rebels had left behind.

In middle earth, anything that would have gone untended for so long would have been covered in dust, choked by vines and buried in sand, but here the houses sat as if waiting, with discarded garden-tools still waiting scattered in the backyards, as if they were still expecting their old masters, dolefully desiring their return.

But Feanor had been mistaken on yet another count: The streets that he deemed 'left to the cowards' were not in fact covered in mildew, indeed naught that belonged to the public was in any disrepair. The avenues, squares, and fountains had not just gone untouched, but well-maintained, and indeed she had heard on her way here of the half of the story she had missed, of the sorry remnant of their people left alone in the dark, and of the exalted figures among the ones left behind who, in their own way, had braved their own ordeal which, at first, seemed no less hopeless; And yet, it seems that they had managed to rebuild their torn, decimated society and carefully patch up the diplomatic relations after the departing rebels burned all bridges behind them – all under the shining leadership of their new king, whose identity was perhaps the greatest surprise of all: None other than Finarfin, the gentle, unassuming youngest sibling, whom no one ever so much as _suspected_ as a possible contender for the throne. Surely his mother and siblings had always held him to be greater than he supposed or let on and meant for great things, but now the soldiers of his contingent spoke of him as a cherished, beloved ruler, thoughtful, eloquent and likable like his father, but even greater in wisdom, and it was no surprise that he should be thus well-loved if he had risen up to pick up the pieces under such circumstances, even after returning in shame, bowed low and begging forgiveness, deserted by wife and children alike.

Hearing this would certainly incline one to wonder if he was not in a sense, the greatest and strongest of them all, for all that he had not Feanor's daring boldness or Fingolfin's steadfast valor, Lalwen's fierce, fearless loyalty nor even Findis' unimpeachable virtue.

In truth it sounded a lot like his style of leadership had not turned out all that unlike to that of his eldest son who had long ruled in splendor as Nargothrond's scholar-king – perhaps Finarfin had long obscured or at least downplayed his true prowess because he preferred the peace and quiet of Alqualonde and out of consideration for his poor old father who already had more than enough extraordinary sons to worry about.

The traveler had not witnessed his deeds in the War of Wrath, but she heard of them, and what his soldiers told her would easily make him fourth among incarnate spellcasters, surpassed only by the daughter of Melian and two of his own children.

Of course, she never met with him. A disgraced, recently-pardoned fugitive like herself had no business with the king. She had renounced her highborn husband and with him, all claims to being a member of the house of Finwe – and even while she stayed with him, she'd always felt much more aligned with his soldiers and ordinary followers many of whom had perhaps liked her for that reason, but even that was long past.

She hitched a ride with a returning contingent of Noldorin warriors from Tirion to whom the earlier battles of Beleriand were but unbelievable tales. To them, it seemed only natural to take pity on one of their disgraced brethren and smuggle her past the Telerin sailors who had ferried their ship but otherwise abstained from the war. They did not even ask if she had gone with Feanor's or with Fingolfin's host, and spent most of the voyage home swapping stories of their battles, telling her of their exploits in the war of wrath while she told him of her own strife. More than once she stopped short, searching for some elusive word that came to her more easily in Sindarin – through the centuries, the language of Thingol has slowly found its way not just to her household dinner table, but inside her very head; Thus were his subjects avenged on her, and doubly when it became apparent to her that her rusty, halting Quenya was five hundred years out of date. Mercifully, the rate of change back in Valinor would have been stalled down to the infinitesimal, probably less so than it would once have been under the pure light of the Trees, so for all that she'd at times struggled to explain herself, she understood almost everything apart from a few novel figures of speech and pronunciation tweaks that had been thought up and popularized in the last few centuries.

But once she dragged the old words back out from the vault of ancient memory, she easily lapsed back into giving the name that used to go with it before she even thought about it – though when possible, she took care to disclose only her mother-name, the one she had always used somewhat less, and took care not to let slip the archaic phrases and old-fashioned pronunciations she had once taken great care to adhere to. Sometimes, despite herself, she found herself missing a few novel creations of Maglor's and Curufin's that would have quickly conveyed complex constructs of meaning to her former followers. She did not suppose that she would ever hear that particular dialect spoken again; At best, their legacy would be a footnote explaining why some of Maglor's old lyrics didn't quite seem to rhyme anymore, but most likely, they would be transposed to the new modes, or chiefly be remembered in their Sindarin versions, like many other things -

The soldiers looked at her in puzzlement when she'd mention things, places, and people which never had names in Quenya to begin with, those who were born later, in part to exiles who had taken Sindarin spouses.

Not without a twinge of sorrow, she realized that many of the returning warriors she'd stayed with had relatives who had gone with the rebellion, but though they came here looking to find them, few of them had succeeded in their quest. The one who got her aboard mentioned that his sister had served Prince Turgon – if the Balroggs didn't get her, there was a non-zero chance that Maglor was the one to kill her; But since Gondolin had remained inviolate for so long, the poor man had probably missed her by just a few narrow little decades.

Being among the very first to leave came with the advantage that she would not immediately have been recognized as one of the returnees when she stepped off the ports in the very city where she had spilled her first blood. She made sure to have her dark hair tied back and her cloak drawn tightly around her, rushing to leave the site of the First Kinslaying behind her as quickly as she could. She didn't think that she would have recognized that unfortunate Telerinmariner, or that he would even recognize _her_ as the one who had thrown that heavy anchor onto his head – if she was honest with herself, she had to admit that it must have cracked his skull before he had the chance to drown beneath its weight or even realize what hit him. She always tried to think of it as a desperate act, but now that she had done much worse it cost her little to finally allow herself to admit to the brutality of it. Her survival had seemed a stroke of luck, but in actuality, it should have come as no surprise. Though she was not yet a warrior, she had been stronger, taller and sturdier than her opponent, a little hardier from birth and well-exercised from centuries of traveling with her in-laws and carrying heavy supplies about their workshop. That poor sailor was much closer to the innocents that Maglor, Maglor, and Amras must have slain at the heavens than the trained and experienced Sindarin soldiers that had given her so much more pause. He was just minding his own business, content in the bliss she had proudly scorned and abandoned until she showed up trying to make off with his life's work, and when he defended what he could not bear to part with, she beat him to death for it.

How did she ever expect her time in Beleriand to go any better than it did after _that_?

Perhaps Namo's prophecy was not so much a curse as it was a simple explanation of what the consequences of their actions were going to be.

Without knowing that sailor's name, she would not even get the chance to make restitution.

She did not recall his face, and still she feared it every time she turned a corner.

But once she was clear of the city gates, she took the road inland and passed between the unmarred trees over the pristine polished cobblestones that were never choked by weeds, inhaling the sweet, clean air and seeing the rise of morning as if for the first time, and the fresh, vibrant colors of all things free of muck and mire, and recalled all the buried, undimmed memories of the joy she used to know here, bursting upon like many fresh sources and springs singing in the tops of the mountains, and only when her feet grew lighter with every step did she fully mark the weariness that had slowly been slipping into all the creases nooks and crannies of her being.

She ran, spun and danced, and never felt the need to stop.

She picked a single golden fruit from a tree, and that sustained her for the remainder of her journey.

Only when she tasted it did she realize how much she'd gotten use to the tang of corrupting clinging to everything and anything. She'd never noticed it when she first arrives, though the contrast was probably sharper one the taint had increased as Morgoth's influence increased over the years – not for nothing had the Valar deemed the defiled lands of Beleriand thoroughly unsalvageable.

Despite the misgivings of her mind, her body quite forcibly snapped back to running how and where it was _supposed_ to be running.

But when she finally reached the Hill of Tuna, it was night again, and all things looked strange. The once-buried recollections of the past were wide awake now and clashed harshly with the present, both where they diverged, but all the more where they matched after she had spent so long living in a world that changed.

All lacked the halo of radiance, the particular magic of the trees that had somehow made the best parts of everything stand out crisply and clearly, in a way, a diametric opposite to the heavy shadow of Morgoth's presence that left only the very worst of all things to be seen -

but by the light of the last star that remained of it, following the old, old maps carved upon her heart, her feet had taken her to her destination before she knew it and left her standing before the house she had grown up in, bathed in strange moonlight as it had never once been, and yet, plucked straight out of the childhood, from the recollections that now burned within, returned with a vengeance so harsh it almost knocked her off her feet.

There were the high windows she had long sat by when she dreamed of unknown places, the countless shelves filled with books, and on the topmost floor, the little lodging where she had grown up and dreamed her dreams, until one day she was seized by some mad thought possessed her to go to attend the latest ball at the palace and make eyes at one of the seven savage woodland nomads that passed for the king's grandsons –

But would her life truly have been all that different if she had stayed home that day? She'd decided to go speak with the princes because she was looking for some excitement in her life, something realer than the stories she'd read, something that might become a spark for stories of her own.

The many empty buildings were a sharp reminder of how compelling Feanor's words had been -

Ironically, she was pretty certain that for all that she might have come to regret it, the wife of Curufin would have left not just with the rebellion, but the Feanorian faction in particular regardless of whether Curufin would have wed her or not – though perhaps she would have ditched him in Nargothrond along with many of his other followers. And just as surely, Caranthir's wife would have never thought to leave Valinor if it weren't for him.

But as for herself, the lone traveler was not certain. Whatever argument she constructed one way or another, she could not be certain that she was not deluding herself one way or another. Perhaps she would have marched with the host of Fingolfin, and instead of being Maglor's wife, she would have been among the refugees he'd cut down at the mouth of Sirion, or among the victims, he left to die on the ice.

But now she was here, still in her drab gown from Middle Earth that looked positively dingy compared to even the simplest garments found in Valinor, changed forever by her long journey, touched by a regret that few of those who had remained behind would ever understand, transformed by the mortal lands much like her grandparents had been changed by the light of the trees, and stained forever by her sins – and she would have to live with that, forever and ever and ever, until the world is broken.

She did not expect to be at all welcome, but she felt that she owed her parents a visit or at least an explanation – when last they spoke, her mother had tried long and hard to persuade her to stay behind and seek the forgiveness of the Valar, and she did not suppose that the news of the kinslaying could have done anything to soften up their convictions.

If they should choose to cast her out, then such would be the punishment she submitted herself to when she chose to heed the summons and sailed home to claim her pardon.

So, she pulled down her hood and pulled on the cord that rung on a bell right next to the door, startled that it still made the same familiar sound, and not much later, she saw the lights make their way down the windows that led down the staircase, the whole place so familiar that it was a staple in her dreams – the memories might have been distant and faraway, but they had been her first, so formative as to become the very foundation to the towers and arches of all her thought and understanding, as was the rhythm of those steps, ever-present in the days before she even really _learned_ to think.

"_Lusina! _My little Firefly!"

An age of the world had come and gone since last she heard anyone addressed her by that nickname.

She would have lost her footing, had it not been for the arms of her father.

**Appendix I, Section b)**

She didn't know how they forgave her, but somehow, they did.

Perhaps she would have understood if she'd ever had children of her own, or perhaps it was _the__m_ who didn't get it: Having stayed behind in this land of bliss whose peace had only been breached once, could they ever truly fathom the depth of her sins?

They asked nothing of her, nothing at all, no apologies, no humbling, nor even repudiations. Even when the subject of the Feanorians came up their words were soft and diplomatic, and only after some time did it occur to her that this was meant as a courteous concession for her sake.

When she asked if they weren't angry, they replied that any anger they could possibly have felt would have cooled down long ago – that all that they could feel now was pure joy at the return of their only child, whom they had long thought lost. Though all in all, their daughter did not get the impression that they ever had nursed that much wrath to begin with – her mother seemed grieved once she picked up on the suggestion that her parting words could have been read as declarations of scorn. And of course, they'd never even thought of having another one; Such was not their doom, and there was no way in Ea that they could have borne even the remote possibility of another such loss – she must have spent too much time listening to the heresies of Feanor.

That was her own thought, though, not her parent's words: Never would they judge or reject her, they said, they only wished dearly to dissuade her from an unwise course of action – and after all that had befallen, she couldn't deny that they had been exactly right.

In fact, those were the first words she said to her mother:

"You were right. And I was wrong. About Makalaure. I would curse him, but I've had enough of curses – both of being subject to them, and of bringing them onto others. Everything you heard, I did, and probably worse. I came here only because at the very least, I am not too cowardly to face your judgment, and that alone is my last hope of redemption. If you never wish to see me again, you would be well within your rights, and I would be glad to grant it."

She thought her parents would take this as vindication. Instead, they looked heartbroken on her behalf. She didn't suppose that their faith in their own bond had wavered much in all these centuries, or indeed, _at all_, from the time they had been fresh dewy petal youths under the shine of Laurelin.

They even felt sad for _Maglor_ – and why wouldn't they? In their memories, he must still remain frozen as he was more than five centuries ago, strange and gloomy perhaps, but still very much a respected member of the community and a worker of great beauty. They weren't there to witness him doing all those unbelievable things.

She was even asked if she would like them to say her name in the old fashion - Feanor, in what meager crumbs of generosity he was capable of squeezing from his scorched-dry withered heart, assumed that she had misspoken when she first introduced herself ("You mean Luthina, of course?") and that settled the matter. Maglor never insisted that she keep it up while his father wasn't around, but neither did he fall out of line. She didn't mind at the time; It seemed little more than an odd little quirk, barely worth mentioning before it became the cherry on top of a large heap of things she had… not even been asked to sacrifice, but rather, given freely without thought, because she had looked on everything to do with him as naught but exciting, fascinating opportunities.

The only response she could have to that suggestion now was to lambaste it with a remark about how much she would like to spit in the faces of both father and son.

Such a sentiment would have been alien to the reserved, contemplative girl who had marched out their door long ago, and her parents both knew it, but the thought to reject her for it simply never seemed to occur to them, nor did they even chide her, making an effort to hide even their clear discomfort – it was plain to see that they were willing to indulge any eccentricity or even warped sharp edges as long as it would keep her from marching off again.

They could still love her as she was now, even as the Valar had still taken pity on this world, in the end, though it be tainted and far from their designs because they were not like their foe who could not stand the sight of anything that had not come from his own pens.

But more than the mighty rulers who pardoned her, her parents were probably inclined to forgive her even beyond what would be reasonable; After all, she was not just a worthwhile creature to them, but a part of them – beyond even wisdom, they left her backs open to her, made themselves subject to the same weakness that got the Dark One released from his prison in the first place, for even the mightiest were not untouchable to it:

In their eyes, she was not a humbled, beaten scoundrel scampering back home in shame, but their functionally widowed child who had been through great torment, and not in their wildest dreams would they even have considered withholding their help.

Of course, her childhood room was still as she'd left it – they had not directed it to new uses after she left to get married, after all, she had visited often enough. They had even refurbished the room to serve two people, as she'd often brought Maglor with her when he wanted to escape some tense situation in the palace. More often than not, the four of them would have long, stimulating conversations about literature over dinner.

She had never forgotten this, but it was long since she had thought of it. She couldn't say why.

She had ample opportunity to come, what's more – Once upon a time, before the whole city had divided into factions and every tiny gesture came to weighted for any trace of disloyalty, Feanor himself had often encouraged her to go and see her parents. _Of course, _he would have. For all that his wanderings had often taken himself and his family very far from Tirion, he always came back before long. He was never happy there, but while his father still lived, he never once failed to pay him regular visits.

Looking back, she felt like she had awoken from a dark, bizarre dream that no longer made sense in the light of morning, questioning again just how heavily the veil of Morgoth's lies had laid on her in the distorted shadows of that deep, long night -

and yet having no question at all regarding the sharp, bitter shards of glass that were still lodged within her soul.

In this familiar place, with all these familiar people and nothing to do but the same old familiar things, it was not actually so hard to go back to go back to the way she had been, loved and supported by everything in this place where nearly everything was mild and wholesome. Its light and water wore down her reticence every day. Perhaps in time, the sharp glass would become smooth ice and in turn, come pouring out as meltwater. She came to sit in her old places - only that she no longer dreamed of being part of the stories as she thumbed through the pages – she only took note of them as a silent observer, having lived through enough terrible adventures to last her for eternity and spend the rest of it being careful what she wished for.

Surely, her father and mother must sometimes wonder what they were supposed to do with this unfamiliar cold stranger they were harboring when parts of her shone through, the one who would sometimes take charge with the hard voice of a leader.

As more and more returnees filled the empty town, there would be less and less objections to having a known kinslayer waiting behind the desk, ready to tell you where the sections with the pottery books are. But though she might come downstairs, she rarely ventured very far beyond this city block and avoided any and all Telerin settlements.

It was one thing to have a daughter who was rarely ever seen because she preferred to be shut up with those things that were her delight, or because she was out traveling with her eccentric artist husband, and having one who secluded herself out of shame for her deeds – but it was still vastly preferable to thinking her dead or exiled because she had followed some mad king on his blazing trail of bloody murder.

This lasts until the first time she curiously stops by the side of the road because she hears music playing from a tavern, only to recognize the first bars of the Noldolante.

Surely, the people must have brought it with them – from over the sea, or from the Halls of Mandos, which the first of them were now finally allowed to leave – just as the Valinorean soldiers must surely have brought Elemmire's lament for the Trees to the remaining exiles.

She turns, runs, and doesn't stop running until she has the door of her old room locked tightly behind her.

She had run because she understands it now more keenly than she did when it was being written right in front of her.

The lyrics took her right back to the blood-stained harbors, but it's the windings of her own thoughts that brought her straight to Menegroth.

But it recalling that song, the deeds that inspired it and the man who came up with him, her thoughts also graze the words he said not long before he sat down to start playing around with the first drafts of the melodies: "I need to _make_ something, or I shall go mad!"

Who can say if it helped at all?

But for the first time since her return, she remembers the neat little package of parchments that she brought with her and thinks that she should probably copy the words onto something more lasting, something _from here_ before it all crumbles to dust.

She winds up doing well more than copy it: The texts wind up edited, revised, ordered, expanded, and readied for publication.

Her parents go from having a daughter who is a mournful recluse to one who is a reclusive author.

Perhaps a few centuries down the line, it will seem perfectly natural that someone who'd spent all her early life around books would end up making some, and even her time in Beleriand would seem to fit right in, once the proportion of returnees in the city had expanded to a greater degree and many there had such stories.

But if she signed any of her old names beneath it, questions would surely be asked, and people might wonder if she wasn't the one who had ran away with a son of the Mad King.

She stuck with 'Tale Weaver', transliterated into Quenya of course – but if anyone should make the connection, they would not follow her to her dwelling on the top floor above a little neighborhood library in Tirion. She understood once she reunited with her parents, that there was not the slightest glimmer of a chance that anyone would come to her doorstep seeking revenge; She could claim no one's coercion but her own, but from that, she could not escape, because she would have to take herself wherever she might go, so she did not go anywhere at all.

Those who knew her here would not recognize her likeness in the makeshift warrior-lady from her stories. Sometimes coming back felt like awakening from a long dream, other times, it was the bliss of this land of eternal present that felt like it should be the dream, and her footprint engraved across the sea in the clay of linear time had been the reality, hard and sweet and wasted.

Still much later she would think that she would have published under a pseudonym one way or another, just to have her humble achievements stand alone unobscured by the long shadow of the royal family. But if that were so, she doesn't she would have dreaded to hear what, say, Finrod or Nerdanel would have to say to it. He'd been pardoned and released early, and _she_ was somewhere out there. But if Lusina were to meet her, she wouldn't even know where to begin her – should she begin by apologizing for following her reckless husband and supporting her son in his walk to his doom, or should she first ask forgiveness for abandoning him in his need and bringing back nothing?

Both scenarios end up happening to some of the figures in her books.

Her works far from the next best big sensation, but there _are_ people who like it.

At some point, the suggestion was made between compliments that some volumes be sent over to Numenor along with all the other gifts.

"Numenor? What's a Numenor?"

"Goodness, Lusina, have you been living under a rock ever since you came back?"

Turns out there _was_ something about that mysteriously returned Edain chieftain leading a sizeable Mannish contingent into the War of Wrath. He was now well on his way to being crowned their first King in the beautiful garden which the Valar had granted to his people as a reward.

(The part of her that was once a rebel hoped that they would do a better job with that this time, but she pushed that proud little voice far far down)

Almost reflexively, she asks who the King is, but realizes immediately that she probably wouldn't get an answer and just got dangerously close of broaching the long-avoided subject of her stay in Beleriand and how exactly it would have led her some passing familiarity with Edain politics.

But as it would turn out, her long-estranged friend was no more unfamiliar with the young monarch's origins than she would have been:

"You won't' believe it. Or I suppose maybe _you_ will, considering..."

"Considering what? Who is it?"

"The son of Earendil!"

The coronation must have been a most magnificent affair. Many generals from the War of Wrath had come to witness the ascension of their former comrade, in the stead of his father who could only watch from the skies. Perhaps he took Elwing along in his boat so they could both gaze down at the distant speck that was Numenor beneath, westernmost of mortal lands but no less forbidden to them like all the others. Eonwe himself was there, and Prince Ingwion, and Finarfin as well, come with a ship from the west. As a former exile and one who had forsworn mortality Idril and Tuor were not permitted to return, but they sent gifts, as Turgon surely would have, were he not still in the Halls of Waiting – but seeing as he had contributed much to the designs of Ulmo, and that his father, in turn, had made the disposal of Morgoth that much easier by softening him up years before, it surprised no one when they were allowed to send letters, confounding as they must have been to such distant descendants who had never seen them before.

And others were there, drawn by the young king's ascension to a coming-together of East and West the likes of which the world should never see again. Son of Earth and Sky was he, of elves and men, of Elwing and Earendil, of all three kindreds of the elves and all great houses of the Edain.

As a representative of Doriath, Celeborn had girded him with the Sword of Thingol; Then, on behalf of the house of Fingolfin, Gil-Galad had solemnly handed him the jeweled Axe which was made of old for Tuor his grandfather in the hidden realm of Gondolin. Finally, Galadriel herself placed on his finger the self-same ring which Finrod her brother once granted to his ancestor Barahir as a token of allegiance, the only such token which was fated to outlast this new-founded realm -

A grand ceremony it was, and a demonstrative promise of future alliance between the western realms of elves and Men, marred as it was by a few marked absences: The great helm that had long been passed through the line of Hador was lost with its last wielder; The Bow of Bregor from the house of Beor had surely been found, the very same one with which Beren had once grazed the hand of Sauron himself, preserved through the years by a Nandorin refugee, and aptly decked out with preservation-spells since, but instead of any elder kinsman, it was the kings' younger brother who handed it to him during the ceremony, surely as a means to involve him also as an honored guest, but also for lack of any other suitable persons, for even their more remote kin on the Mannish side of the family had long since left the circles of Arda, as the king's brother never would – he was now rather counted as a subject of Gil-Galad, and already he had arrived in scholarly garb after the manner of Doriath, in fine robes of green and silver, sporting a garland of fresh greens matching Celeborn's, and looking… though not out of place holding a mighty bow, then surely unsuitable to take what would otherwise have been the place of some Mannish chieftain. Once they were twin-brethren who, in childhood could have been confused for each other, but now it was only a matter of time before the passage of time would begin to mark them differently, so in a sense, this time of victory and high celebration might as well have been a glorified farewell party.

Nor was Earendil here to hand the crown to his son as it would eventually become the custom for the rulers of Numenor and then Gondor in later days.

As Earendil's closest living relative left behind in mortal lands, that part fell to Gil-Galad, and in this, he did his distant cousin an honor so great that the young king almost refused it, for in his hand he brought a Garnet-studded coronet that he had sometimes worn himself.

It was the crown of Turgon his uncle, which some faithful subject had saved from the wreckage of Gondolin and brought under mortal dangers to the isle of Balar – and it was indeed with this token set at his feet that the young man who then still called himself Ereinion had come to learn that his uncle was dead and the crown thus passed to him.

On that day, however, he said that he would return Turgon's crown to Turgon's descendants, and showed up something that suspiciously resembled a marginally mended, mildly reforged version of the old crown that had come out of Aman and was supposed to have been lost with his father when the forces of Morgoth had trodden him into the mire.

Though surely the circlet on his own head must then have been a skilled imitation… even if there was anything left of the original, only someone who had survived the Unnumbered Tears could possibly have retrieved it.

Lusina believed it even less than her friend, for she had been right there when Maedhros gathered up the bent wires of it along with some of Fingon's scattered baubles and hair ornaments. He'd produced some old embroidered handkerchief to wrap it in, and fighting down her own nausea at the sights before her, she had helped him tie the cloth together when he'd struggled to manage it with a single hand and his eyes still wet from the first sight of his friend's dreadful end.

He took the parcel with him to Amon Ereb, and from there to whichever hidey-hole he'd crawled into while the war was raging, and there it must still be, buried and forgotten, unless one were to believe that he had it sent to Gil-Galad, or that any messenger of his would have been admitted to stand before the king after the massacre at Sirion.

It was thoroughly impossible – unless…

Unless there were the old rumors from the war still pricking at the back of her mind, the ones pertaining to the pair of the young lords, and long dark swords marked with eight-pointed stars.

Seeing as Maedhros and Maglor were intent to pursue their dubious inheritance to the very end when last she saw them, she doubted much that they would have parted with their own blades. But better than anyone else, she knew there were two other ones remaining which had once belonged to a different pair of twins -

Could the sons of Elwing have stolen it when they escaped? If so, then what splendid irony! That these alone of Feanor's many blades should at last have hit their intended mark, at the hands of two half-mortal boys, that his whole rallying of his people availed little more than to add through many twists and turns and indirections only these two blades in the hands of these two boys somewhere in the van of what must have been a sizable army of mostly mortals. Even of the elvish side of their families, Elwing was almost fully Sindar, and Earendil himself was more Vanyar than anything else, come of Feanor's least-favorite half-brother and his wife. Perhaps, if she had stayed long enough to witness their triumphant return, she might have discerned something of lady Anaire's tall elegant build about them, or Fingolfin's regal, dignified manner, but most likely not. – the Noldor who had inhabited Beleriand for the past centuries had been wholly spent, unable to contribute much more than intelligence and a very peripheral sort of support, and Maedhros, once so eager to face Morgoth that the incandescence of his determination outshone his father, could not even raise his blade, for the very oath he had sworn in defiance of the enemy now staid their hand from opposing it, since it meant joining forces with the Valar who most certainly purposed to withhold their treasure from them.

(Unbidden, the melody of Maglor's song about the destruction of the pirate ship sprang up in her mind like the haunting of a persistent wraith, especially the last verse, about the lookout-man who had dragged a white shining bird down to the depths with him, refusing to pass from this world without depriving it of goodness and purity once more...)

Finally, the voice of her fried snapped her from her reverie, prattling on about how curious it was that the sons of Elwing would insist on having _Celebrimbor_ of all people present at the coronation – Not that it was _too_ strange. He abode in Gondolin but briefly in the grand scheme of things, but still his talents were such that he was named Turgon's chief artificer a few years before the city's destruction, ousting the previous one when he contrived some useful trinket for the princess; If Turgon of all people could come to trust and value him to a degree despite the griefs between their families, then that must surely be good enough, and it was reported that the new king in his new land desired also to have something entirely new among his regalia, something that should be unique to this novel realm that would be the first proper kingdom of mankind, so for reasons known only to him and perchance his brother, he commissioned none other than the son of his grandfather's murderers and the nephew of his captors, and even saved him a seat of honor at the ceremony, adamant against all political considerations and indeed the smith's own reluctance that a scion of the disgraced elder house should be the one to hand him the scepter like one of his elders; One wonders how they convinced Celeborn to suffer the son of one of the masterminds behind the sacking of his homeland and the unfortunate fate of his brother-in-law. Back in Valinor, the people marveled much at that report and figured largely that either Elros and Elrond must be great in mercy and generosity, or else the newly-crowned Tar-Minyatur might just have inherited a worrisome weakness for exquisite treasure from Thingol his ancestor.

"To think that he was alive all along, as was his brother – turns out the kinslayers had them captive this whole time - ...no offense."

Clearly, her old friend still struggled to reconcile the girl she had grown up with with the grisly tales she had heard from across the sea. The implications of Lusina's involvement had not quite sunk in.

"There is none to be taken. Not at the truth."

"It just seems hard to believe – all of it. I just can't picture _you_ being there. Or even Prince Macalaure! I don't know about his father or his brothers, but wasn't he a gentle, artistic type? I seem to remember you gushing about him..."

"Gentle! Ha!" she laughs, dry and bitter like a crumbling parchment "If there's anything unbelievable here, it's that he spared the lives of those children! Looks like that husband of mine had some shreds of mercy left in him after all… For what little that's worth. A cold comfort indeed must it be for Earendil and Elwing, to hear that their sons were _only _made to spend their formative years in bondage! All I can think is how glad I am that I never had his children, or trusted him with mine. They would always have been second to his oath and his family pride, as I have been!"

"...Lusina-"

"Do not speak words of comfort to me, old friend! I helped in making Elwing an orphan. Only by the great mercy of the Valar have I been suffered to show my unworthy face back in this land of bliss..."

Then, a thought crossed her mind.

"Wait. If the son of Elwing is now King of Men, then-'

"...As with Earendil and his wife, their children have been granted the choice as to which kindred they wish to belong to – I'm told that his younger brother abides with the remnant of our people and has since been named the herald of the King beyond the sea."

Now unlike many of her compatriots back in Valinor, Lusina did not actually think it that strange that anyone would choose to be a Man. She'd actually met Men. Yes, some of them were traitorous wretches such as Ulfang; but as a certified kinslayer twice-over, there were probably many among the Teleri who considered _her_ a traitorous wretch. And there had been others, such as Bor and Amlach, and their descendants – when the Mannish vassals of Maglor and Maedhros had come to their strongholds to hold council, she had sometimes sat with them and swapped stories or entertained whatever spouses, children or close friends the lords and ladies had brought along. In later days, she'd regaled them with their stories, telling them of the distant lands to the west and eagerly listening to their own tales, curious as to what sort of narratives such different beings might come up with.

She never got especially close with any of them but she had seen enough that she could easily how, if someone were half-man and felt an affinity to that kindred, that might be reason enough to chose to go wherever it is they would be going without this being so much of a tragedy.

Any consternation that showed on her face would have come from a completely different place:

"...wait a moment… then he's never coming here."

"By the looks of it, yes."

"...then he'll never see his father again- If they had much time to speak at all, in the middle of the war. And his mother - "

Well, perhaps she had sent letters, while there were still ships passing between Andunie and Avallone, but it was clear that Elwing would never meet him face to face; Perhaps she would meet the younger son if he eventually decided to sail west one day, but as for the elder, who knew if he so much as remembered his parents' faces or anything else before his long years of captivity?

What deprivations did they have to endure before they at last escaped their jailors?

Once, Lusina would have trusted without question that Maglor and Maedhros would have given them good treatment befitting their status as was the norm for political hostages, after all, they were not orcs. But she also used to think that they would never do anything as obviously destructive as to assail the Havens. But given enough years of peace for her anger to cool, she was no longer sure if it she had much right to be feeling revulsion – She had parted people from their parents as well, and merely drawn the line at doing it to people she might _know_. That made a difference for her experience, but for the extent of the suffering that her actions caused, it made none. Perhaps it was only right and just that she had never been a mother.

That day she left her friend really more confused than disturbed and really wondering just what had happened in the Outer Lands, though she had the tact not to ask it from Lusina herself, leaving her to retreat back to her rooms on the top floor, caught in a strange bitter mood that left her little interest or patience for further merry conversation.

**Appendix I, Section c)**

She was being given a grace period of sorts, time to readjust – thought she would not realize that until after the fact, when she was finally deemed ready.

One day, when she was left alone at home, someone pulled on the rope, and the bell rang out through the house, clear enough to be heard on the top floor.

Her parents were out, gone to meet some old friends of theirs who had recently returned from the halls of Mandos. At first her parents had thought that she might like to speak with others who had seen Beleriand, but in the end, Lusina tried her best to refuse them gently without disturbing them too much with the harsh realities of the rebellion. The couple in question had gone with Fingolfin – they had children and half-Sindar grandkids still across the sea, and would hardly rejoice at the prospect of having tea and crumpets with one of the ones that stranded them across the Helcaraxe while they were probably still processing whatever that had made of _them. _Though in spite of their woes, they had chosen in the end to take up abode in that new settlement at the eastern tip of Eressea, where many who still missed Middle Earth had been drawn by their sorrow, so that sometimes, in the right weather, they might espy the large pillar of the Meneltarma on the Horizon, but that distant sight held no such appeal to her. She did not wish to dwell on her memories of middle Earth, neither with longing nor fondness, but would rather forget all that, treating that huge five-hundred year gap of her life like a raw open wound not fit to be touched, and indeed was often of a mind to wish even the centuries of marital bliss that had preceded it excised from her life, though in later days, once she'd had the time and leisure to grow her wisdom, she would come to conclude that the story of her days could not have withstood such a devastating surgery – her innocence might have been gone, withered with her sins, and her love ended in bitter separation, but her trials and journeys had also taught her strength, perseverance and leadership, and led her to find the spark of creation within herself, and none of what she had lost would be regained by casting those gifts away.

But that was later.

Right then, she had hit a bit of a frustrating block in her latest writings and was mulling over all the ways in which she might continue the troublesome paragraph that just refused to flow when she heard the sound of the bell – but as she descended the stairs, she did not really expect anything more than a resident looking to check out some books. With Tirion's population still greatly reduced after the exodus, clients had become rare enough that it was reasonable to await them upstairs – but when she opened the door, the day took a very different turn indeed.

There was indeed someone at the doors: A lone, tall figure in a long, gray cloak and a wide-brimmed hat.

She knew at a glance that he couldn't be an elf, for he was bearded and resembled rather a Man in advanced age, marked with many lines – but that he could not be, as there were no Men in Valinor. Lusina wasn't sure if a Man might have mistaken him for one of their own; For all that their powers of perception were… limited in some ways, she would speculate that they would at least have some means to spot their own kind, even if they should fail to pick up on the subtle whir of energy that surrounded him, the ambient static of the very power that had moved the constituents of the world at its shaping and thus could move it still, and be it only a small subordinate part of that power, subtle and idle like warm embers rather than blazing forth as a flame, while the will that commanded it was at ease.

So for the first time in almost six centuries, she realized that she beheld one of the Ainur – other than the Balrogs that is, at least insofar as she knew.

Some kind of lesser Maia, by the feel of him more than by the looks; If their paths had ever crossed before, he surely must have had a different form before the time of her departure, since he could not have worn the shape of Men before Men were anything more than a thought in Illuvatar's mind and a vague whispering among the Valar and Maiar.

Judging by his artless gray robes this was probably one of Nienna's people, if he was indeed on duty – but so much seemed inevitable. She might have convinced herself otherwise if she had encountered him upon the mountain, or the wide plains before it, or indeed Valmar itself, but they did not come to Tirion so often that might seem likely that he was simply here to check out some books.

So her back stiffened, bracing at last for a reckoning long overdue, and part of her verily longed yield outright from the first, to cast herself on the cobblestones to beg forgiveness, or else to provoke the inevitable with the defiant bitterness that had calcified in the once soft places of her heart that had been raw and tender when she first ran off but holding off both impulses, she strove as best as she could to keep both pride and woe out of her tone:

"Hail esteemed visitor! What business would you have in our humble establishment?"

"None but your help on my latest errand.", he said, cutting straight to the point without polite flourishes, yet somehow all the more disarming for how it crossed right through her expectations.

"...my help?" she wondered. "I'm not sure what sort of help I could render to one such as you, but if you can explain to me what you need, I'll see what I can do… you're not here to borrow a book, are you?"

At this, he chuckled: "Walk with me."

Still uncertain, arms trailing in the ear, she did, reaching for her outdoor cloak in a fluid motion before shutting the door, not even locking it, having then no concept that she might be gone for long.

But of course the people of Valinor only ever locked their doors for purposes of privacy – there were no thieves, no dangers lurking, but some reluctant parts of her heart still trailed behind in Middle Earth, perhaps unable to miss it because they had yet to come home in full.

This may be why a certain wariness crept up on her before long, though she had at first gingerly followed her guide out onto the streets.

"Excuse me, where are we going-?"

The Maia did not pay her words much heed at this moment, striding briskly before her, perhaps a bit annoyed with the cumbersome need to move her from one place to another.

At most, he made the attempt to placate her so that she might be dealt with later.

Without breaking from his brisk march, he produced what appeared to be a little pastry: "Want one?"

"Uh, sure… thank you."

They were delicious. The Maia must have thought so to, seeing as he heartily pulled out a second one and eagerly stuffed it into his mouth. "These are good!"

She would have to agree, though she still couldn't shake the distinct impression that she was being humored to some degree, if not strategically disarmed.

Some of this must-have shown on her face without her knowledge, as he turned to speak with her, in what she perceived to be a surprisingly casual manner:

"You disagree?"

"Not at all! I'm just a bit surprised. Who knew that there are Maiar who like jaw-filled doughnuts? Not me."

He shrugged. "Men might say the same of you. Why would we have descended down into Arda if we did not wish to experience the wonders in it and have our part in adding to it?"

"You got this in Valimar then?"

"No, it's from a small village in the southern plains. Not many know of it."

"Ah, an invention of the Vanyar then?"

Of this, he had much to tell and she thought much on what he said, especially insofar as it stirred some of her older memories and contemplation, some of which trailed near that which she had declared to herself as forbidden topics, creeping in through the mundane, trivial edges that were left unguarded for their insignificance, sliding from a pastry given to her in Valinor to another vaguely similar one that she might have had long ago in Beleriand, something that Fingon might have brought on one of his visits, or maybe it was Finrod, back when it was still conceivable for them all to laugh together –

Then she perceived that they had reached the outskirts of the city, caught herself descending into casual chatter without giving heed to where she was following, both her face and thought sobered, and her steps came to a halt; Instead, her feet prepared to make a stand, drawing a wide line as they spread apart for her to take a stable stance, little as she imagined it would help if this stranger were in fact permitted to seize her – at most, it called back the days in which she was a warrior and a foolhardy crier of big-headed declaration from echoes undimmed within her heart.

"Where are we going."

"I've told you. On an errand."

Yet he was serious enough to stop and face her. Whatever this act was supposed to be – whether or not it even _was_ an act, power and purpose still lurked around his outline.

"Maybe I would like to know the consequences of my choices before I make them."

"Did you really not know?"

"No. I knew and pressed on though I was told about them by Namo himself. I like to think that I learned from that… No, I _choose_ to learn from that right now."

Despite the appearance of tentative defiance about that, her words somehow seemed to please him – He smiled at her for a bit, but then his gaze turned serious, and all distractions fell away, obvious or subtle. He did not exactly flaunt his power or anything like that, he simply stood there at he was, letting the truth bleed through and concealing not from her awareness its extent.

The change was hard to describe in concrete terms, but it caused the lines and creases in his face to resemble less a Man hardly older than she was when she was just barely counted as an adult and rather the bark of a tree or the folds of a mountain range, or something older, in fact, of which the trees, the mountain ranges and maybe even the aged Edain were only a distant memory, and also, all echoes of one and the same song, differing only in how they had distorted it, 'it' being some fundamental idea that could be glimpsed behind the world but could only be pieced together from differing historical accounts of the same event, as though the real truth were lost forever.

Even what he looked like now and all it evoked was likely just a filtered rendition of what he truly was, not a facade meant for deception, but certainly a _facet_ which only approximated the whole.

"I come here on behalf of Lady Nienna. There is someone in her care who has requested an audience, and she believes that it would be to your mutual benefit to grant it."

He never said who it was, but the suspicion was, of course, immediate, and in becoming clear rather than vague, something within her hardened also in response.

"A request? Strange turn of phrase. A request, by its very nature, can be refused… But if Lady Nienna or Lord Namo have orders, I assure you that I have no wish to load further disgrace onto my back", she added, giving a slight curtsy well-honed over those years she longed to forget.

The grey figure's aspect turned stern, with more than just his expression, and every shadow drawn across his ascetic robes and the worn creases in his face.

"A _request_ it is indeed, for that is all we **can** make of you by either law or force. The free choice of your soul is one thing in this world that no power within the walls of this world can compel. So maybe you should think about how you use it!"

The former exile was silent for a moment and stood there in the glimmer of the moon, pondering her sudden speechlessness.

At last, she spake the truth that she had been embarrassed to reveal thus far, knowing that she must be overstepping, yet seeing how far she could go just to try it, like on fight step off a cliff on a narrow tightrope:

"...What if I don't _want_ to see that someone?"

"Then less shall you regret it if you go and confirm that conviction, than if you stay and wonder what could have been until the breaking of the world. You should know that boons like these are granted only in service of a higher doom."

_That_ much she knew to be true, perhaps better than most others here, at least for now, before it has fully become clear who would be returning swiftly, and who would be barred for ages, or tarry long of their own volition on distant shores.

Feanor had never received an audience, nor had his father, the king, though reportedly his requests and inquiries had been passed on.

She would not be asked, and all she had to lose was the comfortable dark of her ignorance, and the freedom to imagine the last act of the tale as it was convenient for her, let it be whatever she said it was and have it mean whatever she thought it meant in divided infinities, in brief, purely nothing, if she had been as certain as she would have had to be to refuse this request in good conscience.

"Alright," she ventured, "I'll be coming with you then."

But then a thought occurred to her, branching forth from new knowledge of their purpose:

"But isn't this the southward road?"

"South is where we're going."

"To the gardens of Lorien then?"

She recognized the road of course. Feanor had insisted that she and the others go there at least once, to be formally introduced, as it were. She thought it would be fascinating and it might have been, had it not creeped her out.

"Yes, but no."

In this, at least, he sensed her irritation, and saw it fit to explain: "Lorien is where we're headed, but it's _not_ where we're going."

It was, however, where she would wake up right before the dawn, on her side, beneath boughs of willow, surrounded by silvery mists and the faint dots of the glowworms from which she took, in part, her name, looking out at its matchless beauty as if she were seeing it for the first time, rejoicing the beloved substance of the world; Then she would hug herself in the morning dew and cherish anew the treasures in the spacious vaults of her memories, enough to last her a lifetime and ever nourish the wellspring of creation in all that she did.

But before that she would remember faint glimpses of a sable-walled hall with walls hung full of beauty beyond compare, and solemn, heavy song that lay upon her like a weight, and many other hidden, uncertain shapes, retained only at a distance, until she came to a gray door arch, might and ceremonial among the black and engraved with the shades of gold that one would expect of the lost-long load of a sunken ship glimpsed through thick walks of dark water, shining still but untouchable forever.

She was so dazed with wonder that she forgot to brace herself, or whatever it was that she had wished to shield her heart from, whose stirrings moved now slowly and sluggish and yet light, like dances underwater, and distantly she thought, what a perverse deed it had been, to slay those mariners by the shores they had loved in drown them in the deep dark, crimson tides and deep blue seas.

Now if she were to step past the arch in the darkness, her hands should have been reaching for the ornate granite slabs of the, but she couldn't see them, not even her pale fingers, but looking past it she saw –

Not the _sight_, but the _impression, _the same cold empty room of stone before her, but what it might look like in a vision, a newly-grasped concept, and idea more than it was even a dream, of what might be if there were a long-limbed figure curled up in its corner. Arms wrapped around his knees, face hung low, cowered by the russet stream of his curls.

As if he perceived not so much her, but his own image held suddenly within another mind, he faced up, and even this afterglow of his pale eyes was incandescent.

The room seemed filled with thoughts of him, and of deep, deep underwater.

"Fair sister! What would bring you to this turbid gloom with the glow of life still clinging to you? Whom would you seek here? Crown-prince Nelyafinwe? Russandol, older brother of six? My mother's son Maitimo, whom she once counted among her proudest works?

Whichever it is, you will not find him here, here is only Dispossessed and Marred and Crimson-Stained…, Lord of _Nowhere_, and King of _Nothing_. The survivors of Doriath have given me the name of half-orc, though even the orcs themselves have begged to differ. I believe that in their speech, I have long been called 'Hewer' - that alone still holds true."

"Actually, I was expecting Makalaure."

"And I was expecting the void, and darkness everlasting!" croaked the wretched, mournful memory of a once familiar, bleary voice: "Illuvatar himself hath denied it to me!

And before you leave here, you might well think that it is rightly deserved.

You can't speak to Makalaure. Makalaure is lost. I can't tell you where he is. No one can.

They say the Silmaril that he bore was cast into the sea, but if that's where he ended, they have found naught that remains of him yet. Neither of his body, nor of his innermost...

I'm sorry, sister, I can't tell you where he is..."

One word alone rang in her mind, and stung at the tips of her lips until he was done speaking, and then, in this illusion of swirling murky blackness, did she think that she had at last understood what had befallen, and her wrath was sharp as the desperate harpoon that draws its master back down with it to the deep in the tangles of its rope:

"The _Silmaril_. Of course. That's all you cared about wasn't it?!"

Silent as the bottoms of the sea, she still somehow pelted the walls with cutting accusations, carelessly hurled, as if she had come only to display herself like the fool-fire of an anglerfish's lure.

"He _wanted to go back!_" he countered, all white-hot-glaring necessity like a blinding magnesium flame, though it wasn't his voice and it wasn't his eyes, or his wild desperation brought on all fours, hair spilling to the ground like molten stone, an urgent star about to blow with a need for her to _understand_, but not in the least for his own sake, liquid diamonds begging on the ground:

"Makalaure said we should turn back. Turn ourselves in. Surrender to the might of the Valar… but I talked him out of it. If only because I no longer believed that this much was even possible… So we descended on the camp of the Valar, and slew the guards- and then..."

"And then _what_?" she cried, and her voice bore down like the pressure of the ocean.

"Then we knew our own wretchedness."

He unfolded the long, sturdy fingers of his hand, like fate unfolded, or the shadows on a sundial, as as the blossom concealed within such martial petals, he showed to her a scar, as a charred fresh burn on the inside of his palm and the lower ends of his fingers.

He didn't _have_ a palm, or fingers, yet the scar was there, as material as the ancient walls themselves who were built here even before the Two Trees first bloomed, a monolithic, natural monument more than they seemed a feat of craft, and more so than anything else here.

His long-lost right hand was hanging over his knees, though he still favored his left out of sheer habit, all the marks, mars and irregularities that once dotted his arms, face and chest were gone without a trace alongside the flesh he was born with; Nonetheless, this one blemish had somehow remained, like some deeper evil continuously reasserting itself from within.

"Oh curse you! Curse you, oh son of Feanor, and your brother right with you! I _see_ now!" Her shadow exploded like an undersea volcano, and her voice was like the cutting ice of the polar seas, and she burst into bitter black laughter like a blister: "Oh, I see! I _see_! Precisely what you have made of yourselves… what I have gone to bed with, both literally and figuratively! O petty thieves! O blissful riddance, or pock-mark of my life! I might as well claim Morgoth for my bridegroom and Ungoliant for my in-laws, for you have turned out to be not a whit better! Like thieves you crept in to lay hands on what others had reclaimed, thieves, and murderers, and stealers of light, you seized them, and now they are lost, and none shall have them, and the light never return. Like Morgoth, they burned you, and like him, and like the spider, you quarreled among yourselves as soon as you got hold of them! Did my so-called husband thrust his sword into your bosom before he ran off to who knows where? Is that whence you came here?! Did he kill you right before you had the chance to kill_ him_?!"

The shade of Maedhros sat in the eye of the storm of her wrath.

"You think I would-"

He looked at her with sad, wet eyes. "No. After all that I've done, I should not be surprised that you think that I would deprive my little brother of his inheritance..."

"… what?!"

All the airs, all the waters, whatever diffuse vaporous ether was swirling through these parts went suddenly still, as quiet as the peaks of hallowed mountains.

Weighty constructs of conclusions and meanings hung in the balance.

"...what in Ea do you _mean?!"_

"There were two of us, and two stones. So it seemed only right that we should share them."

The whirlwind-waves of her wrath did not take up their motion again.

Instead she just stood there, a faint astral glimmer silhouetted in the dark, shaped like a woman who was just beginning to weep. She had no eyes here, no face and no lashes, and yet tears did flow, perhaps sticking to her face wherever she had left it for the moment, safe and sound in gentler regions.

She had no gut here either and yet she was struck, as if someone had viciously kicked her there. The sheer enormity of the implications pressed the air straight of her nonexistent lungs, far more thoroughly than her body had allowed for if it were right here in need of air.

They had _shared _them. The stones that Morgoth and Ungoliant had fought over, the ones that almost no one who obtained them would willingly released from their grasp and tempted even most of those that did, be they dwarves, or elves, or Ainur, or men, or any sort of novel hybrid beings – the ones with the capital L-light from the capital T-trees.

And they shared them, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

She was overwhelmed by the sheer painful beauty of it, and believed it, for she didn't think that it would have been in her or anyone else's power to come up with something so beautiful, save perhaps Illuvatar only – this brief moment of humanity and warmth among a cold, dark empty world of chaos and strife, of light even in the deepest mire of sin, purer still for its nigh-meaningless brevity and almost immediate futility.

Far indeed had they fallen – but even at the lowest floor of the darkest trench, they shared them.

"...you _shared_ them." she spoke, conquered by awe and amazement. "You did not betray each other."

"No…" More than actual air, he exhaled tired, burnt-out realization. "We did not betray each other."

A glimmer of awareness alighted in his eyes.

It was the coldest possible comfort, though perhaps the only sort thereof he could hope for.

"But then… _how? _How did you-"

He held out the faded afterimage of his palm, displaying the very much unfaded mark on it.

"The moment I grasped the Silmaril, I knew nothing but pain. Would that I had taken both of them for myself and never allowed my brother to lay hands on them. I think I heard him scream, but I'm not certain. I lost him. I can't tell you where he is.

I could not hold on, and I could not let go and I- I don't know where Makalaure is. He must have let go…"

"And you-"

Maedhros shook his head. Or formed the thought or feeling that would usually have been connected to the shaking of his head.

"I held on until the very end. So among the seven of us, I alone fulfilled our promise to our father. I did it."

He closed his hand into a fist, as if grasping some lingering immaterial strings.

"I _won_. I have proven myself a dutiful son. But as a king, and as an older brother, I have failed abysmally. It is just like you said – You all built your hopes on me, and I lead you all to your dooms. You were right to leave while you still could. I wish from the bottom of my heart that Makalaure had gone with you. With the others, I failed to stop them, but Makalaure- He knew better. I _made_ him do it. I said whatever it took to make him yield to me. Of all of us, he always had the gentlest heart, and I made him go through with it knowing full well that it would shatter him to pieces… and I paid for it dearly, but there was no reason to drag him down with me.

If you must hate one of us, please let it be me.

I know well that you will never forgive me, and even if you could, I could never forgive myself or make up for what I've done-"

"**I'****ll** forgive you!" she declared, beset by undignified sobbing, her hands, if she'd brought them with her, would have found the shining obsidian floor. "I'll do it, whether you like it or not! Someone's got to, and I don't know who else might. Some. Maybe not many. I- I didn't mean what I said, or, I _did_, but I didn't _understand_ then – I didn't think I'd end up _leaving_, I just – couldn't go on, and didn't know what to say to make it all _stop_. It was my fault, too, I went along with it almost until the end – I pushed for Doriath… I just got _lucky_ that I didn't die, I mean, Celegorm was strong, and he didn't make it out- I don't _hate_ you, I could never _hate_ you, and much less Makalaure – Good Valar, even in the end when we fought he was the most beautiful special person I ever knew I… I could never hate him..."

"I wish we could tell him that, wherever he is..."

So they sat, at last, across from each other, in a manner of speaking, like spirals of cloud breaking up after discharging a great storm, and the cleaned-out salty air around them.

For a moment, there was deep silence, in which the gap between their estranged hearts was bridged by their shared grief.

But that too, however long or brief, was doomed to pass, and at the end of it they both remained together, insofar as either of them could at this time be said to be anywhere at all. Though a brief visitor, she was probably closer to that, to _being somewhere_, though it could not be here.

"...I do not expect that we shall ever meet again hereafter. You've turned back. You passed the test. You live, and I am glad for it. Had you not renounced our house already, I would release you from every pledge you ever made to me. While you were a member of our house, and your sword pledged to our cause, you were faithful in every need and followed us far beyond reason. Heavy enough is my conscience without your weight stacked onto the pile – And though it is not my place to speak for my little brother, I would have you know this: We had little joys in the days that remained to us after our parting, but of the few that were given to us, there were many that he wished he could have shared with you, if he could have done so without obliging you to partake of our grief. He told me so often."

"...is there nothing I can do?" she found herself saying.

Strangely enough, since she woke up this morning ruing that she ever gave them anything.

"You can tell me one more thing. Have you had news of Telperinquar?"

"I stayed with him for a while, actually. He's as fine as can be. Last thing I heard, he found an interesting dwarf mine that he wants to explore..."

"Sounds like him…" and though there was no actual voice, there was a clear sense of wistfulness resounding in the room. "…How about Findekano's son? Still the king?"

"Still the king. And long may he reign! No more Doom for him!"

"That is the least he deserves. He was born afterward, to a pile of rubble.

...And what of the sons of Elwing? What is become of them? I haven't heard from them since they left to enlist for the war."

"You let them go." It was no longer even a question, certainly not the exclamation of disbelief that it would have been not too long ago. Instead it was a simple acknowledgment of something that no longer surprised her and, if anything, seemed more consistent with her memories of the past. She had been blinded and deceived indeed, but possibly not so much as she thought.

She felt the high wall she had built to keep herself from feeling and pity for those she decided to renounce washing away in the surf.

"They were grown already! On account of their Mannish blood, it would seem. There was no reason to keep them with us any longer. We sent them out with the best armor and gear that we could contrive."

"Like my old sword." she almost smiled, though not with her mouth.

"Yes – Yes."

"Well, they've put it to good use. One of them has been crowned as the first proper king of the Edain. The one they call Elros, I think. The other, Elrond, is Gil-Galad's new herald. So you could say that they're back with their own people…"

"Thank you. This means more to me than you know." If he could have, he would have leaned against the walls, drawn his head back and closed his eyes as in great weariness. "Now I can at least rest knowing that my life has not been a mere blight upon the world..."

"Consider it recompense for all that I learned from you. But you know, to be honest, if I hadn't known that you two had spared the lives of those children, I don't think I would ever have agreed to come here."

"Then they might have been our one saving grace..."

"...Is he really never getting out?", she must have asked, when he could hear her no more, once she had stepped out between the door arch and the threshold, out of his personal underwater prison to a corridor of nondescript sable walls from which many other cells branched off, holding, one would assume, numerous other occupants, and all which they brought with them.

There must be many souls slumbering here who dream on angry waters – she knew that she would have been one of them if she had but come here by the quickest road.

But one wouldn't supposed that she'd directed that question at any of the sundered occupants, or at the bare walls themselves, unless it were the wall right across from where she had stepped out, where a pale figure grazed if not the corner of her eyes, then at least the edge of her perception, and in doing so came suddenly into sharp focus instead of blurring alongside the background.

She considered first that she might have come across one of Namo's Maiar, or perhaps rather one of Vaire's, since they were meticulously affixing a splendorous cloth to cover the dark stone, except that this could not be so, for she was solid, as solid as the old black walls who had stood here since before the Two Trees, rather more a feature of the world like the sun or the ocean than they were really like parts of a building –

It was of course not uncommon for the Valar and even some of the higher-ranked Maiar to employ numerous elvish devotees in many of their various holdings and estates alongside their following of lesser Ainur. For the most part these were Vanyar, though not exclusively – Osse and other vassals of Ulmo picked their staff mostly from among the Teleri, Aule had for the most part filled his many workshops with entire clans' worths of Noldor, and as the one who had brought all the various kindreds of the Eldar to Valinor in the first place, Orome boasted of a fairly even mix of devotees – in later days, he would end up taking a sizeable amount of reembodied Moriquendi into the ranks of his hunters, though many among these also developed a soft spot for Yavanna, seeing as the Sindar and Nandor had ever been so fond of her creations.

There were exceptions though: Ulmo's palace in the depths of the outer sea was difficult to reach and impossible to endure by all but the hardiest of aquatic Maiar, which was just as well because he reportedly liked his alone time.

And seeing as Namo and Vaire were concerned largely with the immaterial side of things, having strictly corporeal staff was simply impractical – but being who she was, it was inconceivable that Lusina would not have been made aware that Vaire nowadays had exactly one living elf in her service, hard though she had found it to believe that something that had been such a fundamental axiom in the life of herself and her loved ones might come to be reserved –

but for all that the individual before her had some ethereal, transfigured quality lingering about her which Lusina would soon learn to associate with those who had returned from the halls, she was not quite immaterial _enough_ to be a Maia.

She was markedly shorter than where Lusina would have known her own eye-height to be, slight and pale-haired, though neither her build nor her facial features nor the texture of her hair lined up with what one would expect from one of the Teleri – many among these really did have hair that resembled moonbeams glittering in water, fine harp-strings, shining graphite or the purest threads of native silver, but if one were to describe this lone figure with the same word, it would have been for lack of a better one. She looked rather as if Illuvatar had come with his paintbrushes to color in all his children, and decided for ineffable reasons known only for himself to leave this particular one completely black and white.

Once, this slender creature must have stood out greatly among all the dark heads in the streets of Tirion.

Pressing her vaults of memory for answers, Lusina could recall only other person whose tresses so resembled the wild snows of the unconquered northern wastes – And that was Celegorm.

That, by itself, should have been the last straw, the confirmation that she must have, after a fashion, seen her before, unfaded and yet overgrown with blossoming vines beneath the willow-branches, but she hadn't truly been present then – much more of her must have remained in the examples of the work that once covered the north wing of Tirion's royal palace, where the decorations had gone unchanged for thousands of years while the rest of the building had rotated through dozens of disparate fashions.

Every single piece of her making had been a rapturous marvel; In the outer lands, those denizens who had never seen Valinor could not have discerned them from the works of the gods themselves, except perhaps in Menegroth, and most of all she remembered the colors, vibrant beyond compare, bright in and of themselves, but intricately arranged so as to make each other pop with the sheer contrast between each other -

The younger woman remembered looking down at that leeched, depleted shell and struggling to reconcile its wan, colorless aspect with the tapestries in the palace, and how she failed to recognize even a shred of anything familiar in her slight, feeble figure.

But she had never seen the former queen in motion, never observed how she deftly fixed her work in place with but a few practiced touches. She never expected anything like the swift, effortless fluid grace of Indis, but could not have imagined the abrupt, deliberate movements in their stead, the quick decisive flicks like garden shears snapping open and shut in the hands of a practiced master, briskly severing greens off a bush at seeming leisure until at last a shape emerged from the mind of its creator, accomplishing as much as she could with each move yet never budging once more than necessary.

Now it was her own turn to be the statue while weaver proved that she was not so much frail as quick, turning around in one fell-swoop, leaning just a little forward beyond what might have been polite and raising some sharp appraising eyebrow as she crossed her arms, looking her down with quick bright eyes.

Understanding set in immediately.

Contrary to what one might think from his father's many wistful glances, the son of Mirieldid not particularly _look_ like her –

but he _moved_ like her, he _walked_ like her, his gestures, his bearing, his expressions, _everything_…

Lusina had no need of foresight to guess that she would probably _speak_ like him too, that she would have his meticulous enunciation, that tendency for his thoughts to race out his mouth faster than anyone could follow, and that way of his to accentuate certain words by saying them in very particular tones. It was easy now to summon the memory:

He'd looked, more than anything else, as if someone had taken his father as a template and then cranked up several dials and levers to the peaks, contrast, definition, saturation, everything - an amped-up immoderate distillation of the late King's good looks: If Finwe had been dark-haired and fair-skinned with bright grey eyes, then Feanor was ebony on ivory with a piercing silver gaze; and if the father had been charismatic and enthusiastic, exceptionally brave in a pinch if at times liable to be swayed by his personal sentiments from what would be demanded by obligation or suggested by reason, then his son had dominated every room he stepped into, pursued all his purposes with manic zeal, and did whatever he wanted with precious little thought of what anyone else might think of it, possessed of an unflinching, temerarious boldness.

The elder sons of Finwe had been hard to tell apart in paintings, but impossible to confuse in person. Feanor was – well, many thing's really but – you'd know him when you saw him.

Given his deeds and achievements it had been tempting to class the firstborn prince as an utterly singular existence for which there could be no precedent or comparison, but now it seemed like this might in part be owed to the absence of half the puzzle pieces, the elucidating context to demystify and explain him as a just part of this world, with ties and relations to other parts of it, so that it became possible almost to imagine him as a normal person, and yet still recognizable: Maybe a bit grumpy, maybe quite particular, most likely quite a lot like this woman:

There could be little doubt now of who she was. Celegorm ended up with her hair, Caranthir had her deep dark eyes; The twins shared the slender curves of her limbs, but those long, slender fingers had been passed down in an unbroken line all the way down to Celebrimbor. Maglor had them too, and, as it would turn out, some semblance of her voice, though of course more masculine in coloration. Hers was just moderately pleasant, not some national treasure beyond compare, but there was some kinship in hue if not in brightness, in the way that a fussy kitten bore some semblance to a majestic tiger in its fundamental nature, in a more specific way than how it might resemble other magnificent beats derived from other blueprints, the crowning branches from other illustrious great family trees.

"Lady Therinde! I- I hope I'm saying this correctly, just as you like it. Am I? Please tell me I am-"

The visitor had spent so many years having this drilled into her head that she simply reacted when confronted with once this most unlikely of situations, no matter her previous convictions.

The former Queen did not look like a pushover, but she might not have seemed even a tenth as terrifying to face if every little motion of her face did not recall various trademark expressions of her very imposing son, who to those who had met him would seem intimidating even by proxy.

"Or should I have said 'your Majesty'?"

This, as last, earned her a bemused chuckle. Whatever the piercing scrutiny of her eyes had availed and concluded, it was lost as a drop in the ocean of the calm partial only to one who had gazed into the abyss. At least in this, Miriel was not like her son, and it seemed like very little could shake her, or at least, not anymore.

"Relax, dear ones, I'm nobody's Queen anymore."

"Then you know who I-?"

"_Lusina Narpiel_. Hearty Firefly-daughter. Or 'glowing', I suppose, like a firefly. Nifty pun on your father's side. What was he so fond of saying? 'Might you be a little light on the lives of everyone you know' ? - Also known as Tale-Weaver, Lady of the Gap, and, what was it, the _Lady of Himring_?" she interrupted the waterfall of words that came from her mouth only to approximate the first few bars of the eponymous song in a highly dramatic sing-song, only to resume speaking without a break: "Is that right?"

"...I-"

"What? What is it? Is it really that surprising that I've asked around?"

Actually the most surprising thing, to the younger Elf, was that the elder wasn't insisting on calling her 'Luthina'. So stumped was she, indeed, that it left her confused enough to voice this out loud.

"Well that would make no sense, now would it? I like it the old way cause that's how they used to say it when I was young, and I didn't want to change it- But you were born afterward. You've always said it in that newfangled fashion, so if I told you to go with the old way, I'd be making _you_ change it, wouldn't I? Now why would I do that."

Why indeed. She said in such a way that it could have been the single most obvious universal truth in the universe, and anything else would be ridiculous. A vestige, perhaps, of how her son would have disassembled the arguments of anyone making the opposite point, and Lusina never had any hope that her arguments could have stood against _him_, not when the memory of him was watered down and filed away to its place by many many centuries. But having stood up to his sons however briefly, this here, facing their grandmother, seemed much more attainable:

"I suppose we'll have to… agree to disagree… then, " she began, every word tentative, but taking up speed like the sprint preceding a run: "Perhaps you might ascribe this to a lacking sense of aesthetics – there's a reason that I have given my efforts to prose rather than poetry or the visual arts, but I don't actually think it matters that much, personally, the important part is the meaning – some specific details might be lost in translation, or through the changes of the years, but overall I think that there's nothing so special about specific sounds and phrases that the essence can't be communicated in any other way. Things that can't be exactly matched can at least be explained in the margins… Not that I'm saying that you're doing anything wrong! People can disagree with each other of course! - my lady – but what I meant to say is that I never actually minded.

I mean, it was a bit silly to make my friends and parents do it, so I don't think I would do that ever again-" she said, a twinge of half-dissipated frustration still swinging in her voice, "-but when it comes to Makalaure himself – he was simply brought up that way. So if he calls me 'Luthina', it's really no different from him going by 'Maglor' across the sea."

This she said stung by the awareness that her own name would not have been the best example – the pun no longer worked, she had had to choose if she wanted to be 'Sileth' or 'Thalien' and went straight for the former to retain the evocation of small glowing insects, unaware of how the days to go would prove the latter true.

Rather than awakening the storm she would have feared from her son, Miriel merely acknowledged the matter with a slight smirk, at most distantly bemused by the disagreements that had been started in her name long after her time.

She supposed that it must be strange, to have total strangers come up to her to tell her their opinions about pronunciation of all things, perhaps often enough to get used to it. It's not like any of this was her fault – but though they had never met before, Miriel's presence in the world, as much as her absence from it, had still impacted Lusina's life, so here she was, not knowing where to put her not quite-processed feelings regarding her descendants.

It was hard to stay mad at them having learned the whole truth in her encounter with Maedhros, but still things had been done that could not be undone.

Had things gone but a little different, they might have spoken openly to each other every day – and perhaps an echo of that different world remained still, like a half-forgotten, lingering melody whose corresponding lyrics had been lost to time, if they had existed at all.

"I- I'm sorry, you must probably be wondering what I'm talking about-"

She wasn't:

"_Thank you_ for taking care of my grandsons.

From one ex-lady to another. Sorry they turned out to be such a bunch of _stubborn, thick-headed mules..._ I'm afraid they got that from me. As you can see, I too have come to learn a thing or two about eating my words. Turns out forever-and-ever is a very long time."

If her blunt audacity was supposed to be disarming, it wasn't exactly working. It was hard to get in a word edgewise. Still, Lusina could not help the thought that in another world, Miriel and Nerdanel might have become the best of friends.

"Such is life," Lusina blurted, "unless, I suppose, if you were a mortal.", realizing of course too late that a legend from before her time would never have met any of those. She felt oddly like the shrinking dewy petal she had been when she had first been introduced to the in-laws, and perhaps owing to finding herself back in those old memories, she found herself feeling a lot more bashful than she had in many, many years.

"- Do you blame me?"

"At this point, I doubt even my grandsons do."

"But - They're your blood. Surely you could put in a good word with Lady Vaire- They released _Morgoth_. Surely they don't deserve a worse punishment than he-"

"Of course not. But before they or anyone else could be assigned any punishment at all, they would first have to agree to stand trial. Which would involve acknowledging the authority of the court. I believe my son once said that if they compelled him against his will, they would be no different from the Marrer himself? So they will not. But seeing as he is my son, I suspect that he might find his refusal to be its own reward in itself. And the boys aren't leaving without him. Neither is his father. At first, he decided to stay so I could leave, but now that our son is here, he wouldn't put a foot outside the gates even if they let him…

I reckon that if anything comes of these prophecies about the Dark One returning, they'll all be up and running before we know it. If there is anything that my son hates more than he loves his pride, it would be the Marrer. And who knows. Perhaps he, too, will come to find that forever is a long time...

...but you know, I don't think this is the worst fate they could have been given. If they have erred through an excess of loyalty, some might think it just that they should share each other's fate.

Lord Namo would have had them separated, had not his wife and sister both spoken against it.

So they have each other at least."

"They deserve as much." Lusina mused grimly. "Whatever else they might have done, they never betrayed each other. But surely, at least Maitimo and Ambarussa-"

"Alas, it seems that they are intent on punishing themselves far worse than anyone else would ever ask them to."

"Does this include Makalaure?"

But Lusina already knew, perhaps better than anyone. She recalled the utterly defeated look on his face right before she turned back and left; He'd barely tried to stop her.

"More than any of us, he was always so full of regret – He knew better, and he pushed on anyway. He probably cannot even imagine his own salvation anymore…

I shouldn't be surprised. I believed in him – in all that was good and noble about him – and then, I left..."

Thus she found this total stranger putting an arm around her, like she had been family for a long time, which one supposes, she might have been if things had been different. At least in principle, the matter must have touched Miriel near to her heart as well: "You left because you could go no further without betraying yourself. You gave all you could. No one has any right to fault you for that."

It was then that Lusina found her attention drawn to the freshly-hanged tapestry on the wall, a maritime scene of dark waves, yes, but also the strips of white beach framing it, and strewn somewhere along its line like a misplaced pebble was a dark, ragged figure, long dark hair whipped by the wind, looking somehow even realer than if she were witnessing the scene before her own eyes, as it showed not just the image, but its casing of meaning, a foreboding of the way that it would one day be remembered.

Even now, the minstrel's onetime-beloved felt the tug to reach out her hand, as if she could smell the salt-crusted airs of those long-forsaken shores right before her.

"Oh my stars - Is _that_ where he is right now? What does he think they'd do to him, that he would rather do this to himself?"

"It will be the longest and most difficult work of all, " said Miriel by way of explanation, leaving it unclear whether she referred to the journey being depicted, or the many works she meant to weave in its likeness: "When it's all said and done, perhaps I should like to show it to you both."

The younger woman swallowed, contemplating the implications of this.

She could not honestly find it in her to mount much resistance – had she protested, she would have been doing it merely for the sake of sticking to her words of old, and hasn't she learned one thing or another about that?

Not that she was wholly cleansed of resentment, but she figured that she _would_ be when the end of time finally came in some distant far-flung day, and then it would be for the best, for if she saw him again… _when_ she saw him again, it would not be before he'd have lived through a long thorny journey of his own, harsher than anything her wrath could have conjured. Best that she did not see him before she could greet him without ire or regret.

"You know, if I did see him again, I'm going to make him say my name the 'newfangled' way. At least for a while."

"I thought you didn't mind." the former queen retorted cheekily.

"I don't... but it's not about that. I suppose it's never been. If this were but a scholarly disagreement it would have been concluded ages ago, probably the way the loremasters would have preferred it. It might be a sorry excuse, but I wasn't the first to make it personal – it is, whether I want it to or not.

I stayed with Makalaure because I believed in him. Because I believed, more than anything else, that he had a good heart. Knowing what I do now, I don't even think I was as wrong about this as I had feared…

But I need to know that he'll actually _listen_ to that heart of his. If I want him to stand up to his father and his brothers at least once – if he can't do that even once, for a short while, over some trivial little thing, then I don't think if I could ever trust him again… No offense, my lady."

"None taken. You've got to know your own limits. I feel though that I should clarify that I have never blamed Finwe for getting on with his life. If anything, I'm grateful to Indis. She was good to him – perhaps more patient than I would have been."

Coming from anyone else, such a statement would have been highly dubious, but the former queen spoke with the finality of the abyss and the calm of someone who had made peace with her decisions long ago.

"I can't speak for my son, of course. As it stands, you have known him longer than I."

Lusina's sympathy for the man himself had long come to its end, but having once idly toyed with the thought of becoming a mother but never got around to it, she could not help the twinge of sympathy for the woman before her:

"Have you spoken to him?"

"Not much. As fate would have it, he came in right after I left. But as it turns out, almost all my colleagues have stories about a rather insistent young gentleman who made a habit of ambushing them right outside the doors with fistfuls of crumpled letters.-"

"By 'colleagues' you mean…?"

"The Maiar of the Halls, yes. I've been here a while and for most of it, I was almost the only one here – but I didn't hear those tales from them until I finally asked, long, long after."

"Well, you must have been… indisposed."

"Oh, I was. But even now, I'm still making my way through all the letters – three thousand year's worth of them… Everyone else let it be after a while, even Finwe – but Feanaro never stopped. Apparently they've told him that I wasn't up to the task of opening them, but he never believed it. He kept sending them, even made his boys join in… - Even now, I've only just gotten to the part where _you_ show up."

"-Actually, there might even be a few letters from me in that pile… Well. I hardly knew what to write you then, since I'd never actually seen you before, so I doubt that mine will be much to look forward to… Ah, but Arqueniel and Vorosanya left you a bunch – There should even be a few from Telperinquar, though he was still very young when we left-"

"What, he actually made you do that?"

"Well, for what it's worth, he always wanted to make sure that you were… included, after a fashion. That you were part of the family. He left you empty spots at formal dinners and the like- … Sorry if you already know this, I'm not sure how far he's had a chance to tell you this-"

But Lusina felt strongly that Miriel _should_ know, whatever her own misgivings about the man.

"He told me enough – enough to find that we both agree that some things are worth high prices if such is the only way that they can be bought. He regrets _some_ things – Not too many things, surely less than I would _advise_ him to regret. For the most part, he regrets the works he left unfinished – that includes his feud with the Dark One. He says he would not have entrusted the matter to his sons if he had not been confident that they would not – but he never meant for his own unfinished business to hold them back from what they could have been."

Lusina thought of the sorry shade of Maedhros, and of her husband, wandering some distant shore without aim or destination like a ghost light over a bog, and her expression sobered.

"-That's the closest thing to an apology that we'll ever get from him, is it?"

"I'm afraid so, dear." but she said this with a long-suffering fond smile. Lusina couldn't blame her.

"I suppose that's between him and my brothers-in-law. My work here is done…. I have some unfinished projects of my own left to complete."

"Then, in my capacity as another one of your obnoxious in-laws, I suggest you get a move on. You only have till the world is remade. Go on! Shoo! Get yourself gone!"


	8. (Appendix II)

But whatever happened to poor 'Sweetie' ?

* * *

**Appendix II, Section a)**

Little memory remained in Middle Earth of the realm of Thargelion or its rulers aside from a few scattered lines in piecemeal historical documents folded into larger compilations, and incidental mentions in a few collected dramatized accounts and lays, even less of it survived the ensuing devastation of Eregion and Numenor.

From the surviving records one could barely even glean that its ruler was married at all, from a single, doubtful record – who she was, what influence she had on the realm, or even her very name was lost in the ashes, to the point that it was not commonly known whether she had followed her husband to Valinor at all, or if she was even an Elf. The sands of time buried the realm's brief existence by the heaps under a cavalcade of novel centuries, its whole duration soon made like to the blink of an eye compared to the untold ages that Doriath had endured. Brief also were Nargothrond and Gondolin, but their names lived on through tales of the glory they attained and the unparalleled marvels that had been lost with them –

Every once in a while, some scholar would feel like being radical or controversial and start theorizing about anti-Feanorian bias, pointing out that most of the surviving records had come from Gondolin, but in truth, there was never much necessity for such suppositions in order to explain the extant records as they were – Gondolin was simply the last realm to fall, and as such perhaps the most aware of the need to keep records where living memory (even that of immortals) might eventually fail. Rather than by overabundance, Gondolirhim sources ought instead to be characterized by their lack of absence, which as such would best be credited to Princess Idril's resourceful evacuation plans. The Feanorian holdings in East Beleriand had been martial wartime watch posts, and it was only natural that later generations would find more intrigue in tales of beauty, splendor, and riches than in dry military logistics – it's not as if later scholars wound up drowning in records from other comparable frontline realms such as Hithlum and Dorthonion, though these later acquired significant Mannish populations which would presumably have been of great interest to their descendants in Numenor – indeed most of the detailed reports about those people and their culture spoke of individuals from those realms had dealings with the denizens of Nargothrond.

Of course, those who had actually lived through the First Age would remember a thing or two, but of those who even survived the devastation in the later years of the First Age, most sailed west after the war of wrath and the rest of them trickled out over the centuries, starting with many of those who had borne the brunt of the horrors – and the faction that had followed the ill-fated crown prince had always been one of the smaller ones to begin with, even before the events of the war and the infamous infighting led to its near-eradication. Actual former citizens of Thargelion (or Himring, or Himlad…) were simply hard to come by in later ages; Besides, after the kinslayings, what few of those remaining would have had good reason to hide their former allegiance.

It would have been a different matter in Valinor, and not just because the eyes of Manwe see all from the top of the mountain: If someone were born to a notable noble house and then went on to marry the son of the crown prince, there would be records. Given the advanced state of the civilization, even a baseborn village girl would have produced a paper trail, never mind a member of the high nobility in a large city filled with naturally curious, gossip-prone inhabitants.

Here was the wife of Morifinwe Carnistir recorded and, by many of the immortal denizens, remembered as Almariel Vorime – 'daughter of bliss', and 'faithful one' – from the house of the Topaz, one one of Tirion's most influential families – through outranked by his cousin Anaire, the Duke of Topazes had it all going for him once upon a while, though there were few who would not have thought that of themselves during the noontide of Valinor. But not seldom had he boasted that the most precious and most valuable of all his wealth and treasures were his three beautiful, well-bred daughters – the middle one he had named for the wonderful time of wealth and bliss that she was born in; Her sisters, likewise, had been named for other blissful states that likewise came to naught with the release of Melkor, such as 'peace' and 'love'.

But all in all, the Duke had hedged his bets well and came away much better than the greater number of noble families – most of these had figured that they had a great deal to win from the excursion into unclaimed lands, hoping to grasp greater fiefs under the over-lordship of the various princes. Besides, much of the aristocracy had still understood themselves as a warrior caste, duty-bound to oppose the black foe on behalf of their kings. Most had gone with Fingolfin who was ever popular at Tirion's court – lucky were the nine who had followed after Tirion… at first, anyway.

The House of the Topaz, for its part, had looked to cover all its bases, long before the tensions escalated, back when anything like the final exodus would have been wholly unimaginable. They made a bit of noise to make their feelings about their daughter's match seem befittingly ambiguous, but kept it down to a volume of plausible deniability that would not go so far as to seriously sour the famously touchy crown prince against the union, leaving it to be deduced that their disapproval was a mere formality, a chore, and obligation, meant to maintain plausible deniability -

The Duke's ambition was to secure himself a place no matter who came out on top: Should Fingolfin be the one to triumph, they were counting on their relation to the family of his wife to bail them up, but at the same time hoped to hold their door open with Feanor by fixing up one of their daughters with his famously unruly sons, which the eccentric crown prince had famously raised in the wilderness alongside his artist wife.

At first, they entertained the notion to aim their eldest at either Celegorm or Maedhros, who were easy on the eyes and could at least affect an outward semblance of princely bearing, but their machinations rendered themselves quite obsolete when the sweet, unassuming middle child unexpectedly volunteered herself to charm the famously bad-tempered prince Caranthir.

Many in the family's circle soon suspected that she was simply taking one for the team, but this was not so and had it been otherwise, the Duke's ambitions might have easily come to naught – he banked all his gamble on the assumption that prince Feanor would be perceptive enough to realize that he was being courted as a political ally and slave enough to his infamous ego to be swayed easily by such flattery, but for all that he correctly gauged the craftsman's hubris, he misjudged the extent of his fierce possessive streak, and by far underestimated his wife, whom they expected to be clueless in courtly affairs.

The Duke had been counting on the crown prince to strongarm one of his sons into the match if it benefited him; Many other nobles would have thought of a demanding, uncommitted ally as a trade partner to be appeased and compromised with, but to Feanor, anyone unwilling to take his side completely was simply straight-up suspect, especially if they went around suggesting that he might want to rid himself of the worry of getting his unreasonably large flock of half-wild problem children spoken for.

Proud her certainly was, and not at all above undue meddling, but even so he prized his offspring as one might jealously guard jewels; Insofar as he was concerned, even the fairest of noble daughters were barely good enough for them, and anyone who did not begin negotiations by accepting this premise would simply not get their children into his branch of the royal family.

And then there was Nerdanel, who was for a brief time just about the only person who could have talked down her husband from the brink of taking offense, but might not actually want to, seeing as she was scarcely less perceptive than him and much more level-headed and hence inclined to grasp the bigger picture. Rather than sit aside and sprinkle in the occasional trivia about sculptures while the politics were being discussed, she had attentively observed and mentally dissected every ambiguous statement and covert offer. To the nobleman's surprise, she had astutely seen straight through all the courtly pretense and shown precious little patience for it, at times summarizing the flowery effusive statements in crisp plain language. She did not reject the alliance out of hand but made it clear that she knew very much what was being played, and that any arrangements between their families would be secondary to the choice and happiness of her son.

Had she suspected a trap, she might well have ended up fanning her husband's misgivings, but if she smoothed over the talks instead, it was only because to her judgment, the Lady Almariel seemed a nice, honest girl, and quite genuinely infatuated with Nerdanel's moody middle child.

The events of years to come should prove her impression right.

Much later, when Nerdanel herself had long since forsaken her husband's ruinous course, the Duke of Topazes could not have dissuaded her from going even if he had wholeheartedly wanted to, but he figured that it would be advantageous not to protest too ardently, in case that the entire venture did, in fact, turn a profit. If it did not, he'd always meant to fall back on pleading that he'd tried in vain to dissuade his daughter from going and that she in truth deserved sympathy for having married into such a house.

But though the lord was not swayed into following the princes across the ocean, the grandiose words of Feanor had not left him unaffected in the end; He expected the expedition to be costly enough that he preferred to stay out of it and expand his position back home while everyone else was busy across the sea, but he had, at length, expected the hosts of the Noldor to return sooner rather than later, victorious and laden with the spoils of conquest. Fingolfin at least he thought would surely be back before long, and Turgon his son, and with them the greater part of their followers, and if Feanor for his part insisted on setting up his own bountiful kingdom on some distant shore, wouldn't it be convenient to have a bond of kinship with his house? Perhaps there would be trade agreements to wrangle.

All of this was of course devised before the blood was spilled at Alqualonde, the Doom proclaimed or the fences are drawn around Valinor when at last the exiles burnt all bridges behind them and by then there could be no more talk of calculations. By the end, her parents and sisters fit right in with the scenic wide paintings and the songs of lamentation.

They eventually recovered and made some sense of the events that they could fit themselves into, but right after the darkening, the constructs of their pride had been reduced to rubble just like everyone else's. The remaining daughters wept bitterly when they realized that they wouldn't see their sister again, not soon anyway. Someone quite possibly carved or painted them on the empty streets, as fair decorations upon haphazardly emptied houses and more broken glass than the unrest had actually produced.

At some point they must have bent the knee to Finarfin, quite ceremonially, once he had cleaned his brothers' belongings out of the palace and redecorated the rooms his father had once been expected to return to – they might have been there when he got around to formally donating his family's belongings to some gallery or another, punctuated with some speech about the dangers of keeping to oneself what ought to be enjoyed by all and hence could belong to no one. Most of his remaining vassals were there, trying to fill out rooms built with larger crowds in mind, though most might still have been too dazed to form much in the vein of definite memories. That might have included the king himself – He might have been tempted to give in to sentimentality and leave it all untouched, but at last, reason prevailed, just like when he turned back. Had any of his siblings done it, it might have come off as a petty thing to empty out his half-brother's personal vault; But all that he seriously wouldn't part with would have come with him to Formenos, from where Morgoth got it, or the spider, and in any case, it was gone from the world, which would have to content itself with the scraps; It was decreed that no one would ever be returning for them.

Perhaps they should all have known that few things were ever eaten as hot as they were cooked – but could they have, with so few past disasters to look back upon yet?

Eventually, there were pardons.

First a trickle, not yet a deluge. First cases like Prince Finrod's where the right course of action was overwhelmingly obvious, but soon began the discussions on the first truly dubious cases.

On the list of names being discussed was 'Almariel Vorime', one of the first to draw real surprise upon its mention; A case that didn't simply require the technicalities disregarded, but their meaning pulled apart and elucidated. The Valar were going to hold a formal debate and all, and no more about ironing out nuances of judgment, but to iron out a genuinely wide divergence of voices, ranging from arguments according to which her punishment should have been accounted especially severe, and others that would waive it completely: One the one hand, she had never taken a single life, barely even picked up a sword at all, not even at Alqualonde. But on the other, she had followed and supported the kinslayers almost until the better end. It was true that she was motivated chiefly by love, but would not a true friend dissuade a friend from folly? She could have renounced her husband and his brothers. Others had done so. She was, after all, responsible for her subjects and bannermen, and not unprepared for such a role. Did she not owe it to them to speak out against folly? Had she not abdicated responsibility to escape unpleasant confrontations, and enabled the bloody deed at Doriath through her mere presence?

But how could she be held guilty of spinelessness or cowardice when she had braved the perils of the road and all the wars and feuds for the sake of her love? Were she simply treated as one who never spilled blood, she should have been released as soon as she was ready for such, but there was more than one voice that judged her to be functionally unrepentant and as such ought to be held past unless she renounced her stubbornness.

In other words, how much could she be faulted for the deeds of those close to her?

A missive was sent to the king, as the matter concerned one of his subjects, and in the widest, most technical sense, a member of his house. That last part might have been held debatable, but the first one wasn't; Prince Finrod, however, had invited himself to come along. Perhaps the matter touched him near as a fellow pardon-ee; surely he would have known more of it than his father. Though considering the manner of his demise, those who did not know him well might not have been sure which way his testimony was going to weigh in towards; Those who did figured that philosophic or scholarly interest might have been explanation enough for him to join in, had he not spent most the time since his release in the house secluded in the house of his beloved, with even his official appearances alongside his parents kept far and in-between.

The High King acquiesced to his son's request to come along because he very much saw the wisdom in it, but even if he were more ruled by his own feelings he would likely have agreed just for the joy of seeing his then only recently released son up and about again.

To his sweetheart, the prince simply told that he had an old errand to take care of when he made for the door.

He came to the ring in Valmar, he listened patiently, he took in the details as well as the broad strokes, listening long and intently with what seemed to all like a representative sample of the generous thoughtful wisdom he was renowned for, trying to understand the disagreement as best as he could.

The accused herself was, in a sense, present.

She could not exactly be dragged before the tribunal in chains such as she was now, but Finrod's senses being what they were, he noted her presence much like he might anyone else's -

The awestruck flitters of her soul with not even her own limbs to hide behind, and her amazed at the true, unfiltered voiced of those she had known as the lords of the west, of which their voices audible to ears were only a part, limited by what even the finest ears could hear without hurting, what eyes could see without being blinded and minds feel without snapping.

He gave her something like a reassuring smile, but not with his mouth.

Beside him, the crown prince sensed his father's subdued surprise, but always somewhat bolder for all their likeness, he stood up from his podium and made a speech.

Dignified were his world, insightful, kingly, like the speech of his grandfather and great-uncle before the people of Cuivienen beneath the sunless moonless sky, but also heartfelt and impassioned, recalling a tenth of a fraction of an echo of a certain cousin on his mother's side who once plead before the mighty. "Far be it from me to infringe on what lies outside the domains of my wisdom. The extent of her guilt is not for me to decide – As one of her peers, it is undeniable that I would have my biases.

But as her peer, and one who has received the drought of your mercy, I find that it is my obligation to state that her sin is also mine. Whatever she is guilty of- I have laden the same weight upon myself when I marched forth against your will, because I would not abandon Turukano and the others-"

At the end of it, the wife of Caranthir was bashing her newly reinstated firsts against the wall of Mandos' halls.

"Let me back in! Let me back in! I never asked for any pardon.!"

"You agreed to stand trial."

"I was scared, I- I thought whatever they did, I was never getting out. In Araman, they said that whatever we did and whoever might plead for us, none of us would ever be let out!"

"There are worse punishments you could be facing that life in the Blessed Realm. Perhaps you ought to think on the meaning of this sentence, and do penance."

"What's it to you?! Why'd you even try to bail me out?! My family got you killed."

"Believe it or not, we have mutual friends. Do you remember Lady Haleth of the Haladin? The Men who latter settled in the forest of Brethil?"

"...of course I remember Lady Haleth!"

"Then you should know how she was – she did not like to have unpaid debts with anyone, but she owed her life and that of her remaining people to Carnistir and you. But as it was, her people had sustained great losses on the march to Brethil and her responsibilities as chieftainess would keep her from ever leaving Brethil in the foreseeable future. So she asked of me, that if ever in hundreds or thousands of years there was something I might do for the two of you, I should do it in her name, especially if my own heart misgave me…

You were accessory to the murder of the son of a dear friend of mine. And his wife. And his young sons-" Finrod said, slowly, and at this, he could not wholly keep the bitterness out of his voice – still he did his best to keep doing so, "Your husband perished in the attempt to kill them – descendants of my mother's cousin. But at the same time, you never killed anyone. You never wished anyone arm – and you have always treated myself and my brothers with kindness though your husband did not. To be honest, I don't have many good memories of him. He was always unfriendly to my little brothers. You might not wish to hear this, but in truth, I think that you ought to hold him responsible to your death. He should not have sworn such an oath, or gone to war while he had other responsibilities such as you – at the very least, he should not have brought you to such a dangerous place."

"...your brother Angrod brought his wife."

"And I scolded him for it."

"You're just bitter that your own girlfriend ditched you!" she spat back with uncharacteristic recalcitrance.

That sounded very much like something Caranthir might have said once upon a time, which meant that she was out of things to say, which meant that Finrod was nearly getting through to her.

"It is true that I wondered what might have been if she had come with me. Until Elenwe died. Then I stopped wondering. But I never resented her. Such a virtuous, upstanding girl as Amarie would never have disobeyed her parents."

"Well I would have!" she declared, all her soft, pretty face hardened in defiance as the raven dark hair she had always worn in intricate styles now fell wild all around her "Nothing could have kept me back! I would have jumped in the ocean and swam if I had to!"

"Fool! You would have frozen to death! Have you any idea what that looks like?!" the golden prince seemed hard-pressed to summon his famed patience. "Look. What I was trying to say is – If Lady Haleth was not mistaken in her estimation of him, Carnistir should consider your release more of a favor than any boon I might have given unto himself. That's the favor I'm doing him, on Lady Haleth's behalf. Your freedom."

Almariel looked thoughtful enough at that, though her face was still hard, and her new hands still balled to fists, bruised from banging on the gates of stone.

"You kept word. I can't say that you're not a respectable man, at least."

"And what of you? You have your life back. Perhaps you should think about what you should do with it."

"Where do you think they've all gone?" she asked suddenly, her voice quieter, gentler, more like her usual self. "Lady Haleth… and all the others. And Beren. And King Dior. He wasn't in the halls. You think a lot about things like that. You know many things..."

"Yes, but some things are unknown even to the Valar. I do think about them. And Barahir, Beor, and Lady Andreth… all of them. I suppose that wherever they are must be a place that would be very unsuited to our kind, just as Valinor would be unsuitable for mortals… Perhaps we'll see them when they come to get us to the next world."

"So King Dior's wife is not going to see him again until the world's end… because of us." Almariel mused, and for how little she understood or cared for reason and destiny, the understood that.

"There's a chance that he would have chosen to go there anyway. Maybe she could have gone with him, or he could have chosen to stay, but though such exceptions have granted, it was always in the service of a higher doom. Not everyone was so fortunate."

"Still! The one son of Earendil who stayed behind with the mortals lived five hundred years, and he wasn't even part Ainu – at least not that much. If they had only a short time, then it's only worse that we cut it even shorter. I think you might be right, about the penance. It might not be wrong that Carnistir and I must be parted for a bit, just as King Dior and his wife must be… You're right to be mad, he was your cousin. I don't envy you, having two parts of your family fight and kill each other. I can't imagine what sorrow we have caused to your father and mother."

She clasped her own elbows, facing away from him.

Still, the golden prince stepped closer until he was standing beside her.

"You know, I do not think that our going to Beleriand was altogether a mistake. Everyone I've met, everything we've learned, the glorious deeds that were done, and the marvels that were wrought – I could never regret this. I can't help but think that we were always supposed to go there. That it was always ordained that, at least at the very beginning of the world, we should meet the Edain, and they should meet us so that we might learn from each other, and fully understand the knowledge of which each of our peoples had only been given one half. It was never supposed to happen like that, not with strife and bloodshed. But when you think of it on a larger scale, our war was actually a resounding success. The enemy had his attention focused on a relatively small part of the world, and we had him pinned down in his fortress through most of it, so that his attention was drawn away from the rest of the earth, and we made him spend the greater parts of his forces against our bulwarks. The swords and the heroism of our people were the best tools to keep him in check until the means to fight back against him could be recovered – Earendil's Silmaril. At last, the hosts of Valinor intervened right before we could be completely annihilated..."

"I wish I could say that I never understood why Carnistir didn't like you, but you do. You talk like all this has nothing to do with you, though you died as well, and all your kin save your sister…

But I don't blame you. I can tell you that you do care. It's just how you see the world, is it? I understand… I could tell, a little bit, that nothing good would come from attacking Doriath..."

**Appendix II, Section b)**

So it came that after many long centuries, the House of the Topaz' long-lost daughter returned at last to the house of her father.

Her parents and sisters were prepared to receive her in any imaginable state of pitiful brokenness, but instead, she arrived polite and resolute, her evident old tear-trails tastefully quenched.

Whether she perished by sword, despair or floodwater, they never found out, because she never spoke of it again and anything that reminded her tested the limits of her composure.

She would not tell much of her time in Beleriand, and would no longer be referred to as either 'Almariel' or 'Vorime', nor another variant thereof. Instead, she took an entirely new title, loosely transliterated from an appellation she had once used in Beleriand: 'Marilwende' from 'Marilla' which is 'Pearl'.

Because "That's something like what my dear Carnistir used to call me", which she would say which an inexplicable tint of residual fondness of her word, yet an indisputable tint of pink on her cheeks.

She could not be induced to speak ill of her in-laws no matter how much her parents deemed that politically convenient, while they would not order her outright, and in this, they found her much changed though her kin had a hard time pinning down what exactly was different.

Most apparent was that she wore her hair unbound and went ever unadorned in simple white garments much like the ones she'd been released in, and once she had staid a while with her folk, she turned to them and said that she needed to go, and no number of words would seem to put a dent in her resolve.

"I must do penance." she would insist quietly but firmly.

Up to the moment, before she arrived, the suggestion would have seemed ridiculous, but now she seemed irrevocably removed by her experiences though she had returned to this world, as if the wide ocean were still between them, for all that one could find no difference at all in the subdued if cheerful wave of her hand.

"Don't worry, I shall visit you, of course. And write, for certain!"

Then she marched off, by herself, for as she said, "What could possibly assail me here? No creatures of darkness lurk here." Often before had she gone even through pathless wilderness, and that was not where she was going now, for all that the roads grew less and less used the more she approached her destination.

When she arrived there, she found it bathed beneath a plenitude of light she had never seen there once before, not even in the blessed golden days, for it was the time of evening when the sun would rest from its weary paths at the edge of Valinor, and for all that its scorching imperfect heat compared not to the branches it once sprung from, the glory of the trees had only barely reached this far north.

She would find the shell of Formenos as rent and blackened as Morgoth and Ungoliant had left them. It made perfect sense that no one would ever have come back to such an inauspicious place, or even raise up the walls a new – for whom? Aside from the sun's harsh, accusing glare, nothing at all had changed from her very last memory, not even from decay, not once the thieves had left, aside from one thing, a single stone marker housed on top of a simple mound, erected, perhaps, by some last few loyal subjects, or maybe Finarfin himself in honor of his late father and predecessor.

It stood right in front of what used to be the inner gates before Morgoth himself had bashed them open with his humongous war hammer, a sober, modest affair of pale marble and silver, inscribed with a few solemn words intended more as a record and warning (to their own future selves as much as their descendants) than an expression of grief: "Here it is that our people first knew sorrow."

Had the elder sons of Finwe had their hand in it, it would most certainly have turned out very differently. More colorful and grandiose, perhaps topped off with a dramatically posed heroic statue. But they had been long gone across the sea, leaving Finarfin to take care of this matter as a concession to duty while his mother and remaining sister were still too stunned, or too burdened with the ambiguity of their very mixed feelings.

Marilwende privately suspected that out of all Finwe's children, the one who would have come the closest to what his own wishes might have been was probably Lalwen, but she, too, had been gone.

The stone marked not just so much the death of a king, but the end of an era.

Marilwende, of course, had never been a historian or even that much of a politician; She chiefly remembered the late king as a friendly, enthusiastic fellow very attached to his family.

She never saw his remains, but she'd seen Maedhros' face after he'd found them.

They'd often had tea on top of the battlements whose rocks now lay strewn across the landscape, they'd generally sit up there with Maedhros, Maglor and 'Sister Luthina', who was then not so hardy and brave as she would later become and often kept rather quiet in the kings' presence. Sometimes Celebrimbor would join them, barely more than an adolescent at the time, though the rest rarely showed that much interest in such quiet pastimes; In that smaller circle, the late king had sometimes felt free to confess how much he missed his wife and younger children and discuss the latest letters from Tirion before an audience that would show interest rather than chemically analyze every innocuous passage for its contents in insults, slights, and suspicious occurrences.

Marilwende paid her respects with a quick but deep little bow, and then continued onward past the broken walls – once, their height and thickness had been considered evidence of folly made material; There had been no thieves in Valinor yet, and not a single siege weapon, not even in Tirion during Fingolfin's brief reign there; In the end, the walls were not nearly high or thick enough.

Everything down to the vault was broken open into a yawning chasm several stories deep, leaving everything in its way blackened, defiled, and bereft of life and color. Later still, what remained of the armories and stored provisions had been hastily emptied, boxes and bags filled to the brims until the remainders spilled out at the top and ended sprinkling across the marred floors: Half of the fortress complex had been completely destroyed, but most of the other had still been structurally sound.

So she sat down on the stairs of black stone, in her pale penitent's garb, to await there the returns of her lords, for however long it may take.

If anyone came to seek her – her sisters, diverse Maiar, at one time even Prince Finrod himself – she greeted them most kindly and seemed by every indication to greatly appreciate their visits and whatever tokens they left her with, but she never once wavered in her determination to stay.

The most insistent visitor was Lusina, who had come all the way from her recently acquired new home on Tol Eressea but stayed by Marilwende's side for a week looking to convince her to come with until she had covered all the paper she'd brought to amuse herself in a sequel to her most recent novel. At some point, she asked Marilwende to proof-read a section concerning a main character's death and enlighten her as to whether she had depicted the experience correctly.

Lusina received some useful, enthusiastic feedback, and went right back to work, her back against a half-broken pillar of what had once been her home.

"It's fine." said Marilwende then, "I know you must be feeling responsible because you couldn't save me back in Menegroth, but don't be. I have made my choice, then as now… and I've had much more time to think about this one. I know what's important to me."

"Are you really sure about that?"

"...well, I suppose, only so much as anyone ever is."

"I know what you mean..." Lusina acknowledged with a sigh. "I've been very sure about very many things. And I didn't listen though Namo himself came to tell us how I'd come to regret it."

"Yet he let us go. So, might you afford me the clemency of that same freedom?"

"I suppose I must. I didn't come here to be yet another person telling you what to do. I just want you to know that you're important too. That your life, and yet more so the truth within your heart, are very valuable things that shouldn't be lightly cast aside."

"I know. And I thank you for that. You will always have my gratitude, even if the truths in each of our hearts don't lead us down the same paths."

And that was that.

Lusina was satisfied by this answer; Besides, Marilwende had the impression that she was eager to be gone from the ruin and all it represented. She would not return here very often.

Marilwende, however, remained stubbornly, come rain or shine.

Only much, much later, when a substantial number of her former vassals and subjects had served their sentence in Mandos or swallowed their pride and gotten on a ship once they had wearied enough of mortal lands, did she receive permanent company. There were enough who repented bitterly of any association with the house of Feanor and either openly renounced their old allegiance or did their best to keep it hidden, but others were incensed when they heard of their former lady's fate – for her self-imposed penance had become something of a legend among the denizens of both Tirion and Tol Eressea – and began showing up at Formenos in great numbers, some too ashamed to face their brethren, others recalcitrant in wounded pride.

Only then was the broken fortress restored to some semblance of its former glory; For many of them had been craftsmen and saw it as a matter of honor that they should not endure the last remaining member of their royal house on these shores living in deprivation.

It probably helped that Marilwende had always been among the least controversial members of the house of Feanor; And she was known to many, for she had often taken care of the social and representative functions for which her husband lacked the patience. Both her sociable, friendly personality and her upbringing as a high-ranking noble had made her very suited for it.

She warmly bid them welcome, and feeling that her responsibilities were now changed, took up her high titles again and ruled over the gathering remnant as their lady, and many people came onto her, not just her old subjects from Thargelion, but survivors and returnees from just about all the Feanorian realms, and even many artisans from Eregion which were born in the second age, just about anyone who still bore any loyalty to the elder house.

In this, it helped much that Marilwende's bearing was neither obdurate nor ashamed, making her a uniquely suitable ruler to be accepted by both the proud and the repentant, soon to be known for her disarming generosity and a commitment to make sure that those who had flocked to her each received the freedoms they desired in so much as it was possible. She made a point to learn the characteristic Sindarin dialect of Eregion and did not impose any puristic restrictions. At some point, the settlement had arrived at its own blended dialect containing elements both from there and that which was spoken in the realms of East Beleriand, with all the Mannish, Nandorin, and Dwarvish elements it might have picked up over the years (the latter of which would have been just as familiar to the newcomers from Eregion anyways) – where Quenya was used, Lady Marilwende never enforced any hard restrictions that might have been resented, but despite or maybe precisely because of this, the archaic mode as espoused by Feanor was held in a certain prestige.

Both traditions were then developed further over the years, which was only natural for an almost mostly Noldorin settlement whose citizens were ever eager to concoct new slang terms or concepts in both science, engineering, and art theory, though major shifts, of course, happened much, much slower on the soil of Valinor.

Eventually, the denizens of the old Fortress city were even forced to expand the complex, and many of the newer arrivals added their own touches to it, the most visible being a bunch of holly trees that thrived well in this northerly land now that it was reached by the light of the sun. Rightfully or not, many stubborn old loyalists considered it a victory that 'the jealous Valar had at least been forced to share the light with the world'.

The Valar themselves, of course, could not have failed to take note of the expanding settlement and had sent another Maia long before it came to this point: Eonwe himself, and no lesser envoy of Manwe.

He wished to speak with Marilwende, since she was if only by Marriage, the last heir of Feanor's that was currently living; this, and the fact that those of his old supporters who still held to his house had chosen to bend the knee to her, was enough to qualify her to speak on her behalf unless Maglor or Celebrimbor themselves should come across the sea to gainsay her.

She received him not as a supplicant but as a lady in gleaming finery, but she picked him upright at the doors and offered him some tea with a casual friendliness that was neither submissive nor rude.

In this, too, she would prove the right person for the job, though the negotiations that followed weren't as tough as one might have expected. The message of the Elder King's herald was a conciliatory one:

Though the Valar believed themselves to have acted to the best of their conscience and ability, they wished more than anything to ensure the lasting peace of the Blessed Realm and to avoid repeating any unwitting mistakes and exploitable weaknesses that had left room for Melkor's schemes to prosper. They still maintained that their offer to their forefathers had been made with the best of intentions and that both the three ambassadors and all those who followed after them had come to Valinor of their own free will – but they acknowledged that while this first generation had been given the option of whether to go on the journey, those born after such as Feanor and Marilwende herself had been given no such choice.

The slaughter at Alqualonde they must and would always condemn, but they judged now that in wanting to leave, the rebels had done nothing worse than the forefathers of the Moriquendi and should not have been forbidden from going.

Middle-earth they adjudged still to mortals, for it was the only suitable place for them in all of Ea, but at the same time, Valinor would in the long term become the only suitable place for the Quendi so if they were to live there for eternity, the Valar recognized that it must be made amenable to their natures, which, for some of them, included a strong desire for self-determination, as the rebellion of the Noldor, the refusal of the Avari and the independent realms of the Sindar and Nandor had all clearly exemplified.

Oddly enough, from their own point of view the Valar saw in this evidence that the two kindreds of the Children of Illuvatar were more similar than they had presumed, and all mysterious to them as they had always been. But Eonwe had made another observation that much surprised Marilwende – that those of the Ainur who had gone forth into the world were precisely those who had wanted to add their own spins and embellishments to Illuvatar's work, while those who were content to merely aid in realizing His plans had mostly remained back in the Timeless Halls. He stressed that Manwe wanted them very much to come to an understanding, and that he, as the other Valar and Maiar still loyal to his command, desired nothing but their friendship, and that if they had erred, it would be because of the uncertainty caused by the chaos of Morgoth.

Marilwende nodded to this. An understanding was reached.

Insofar as they abided by the general laws of the land in their dealings with the other peoples of Valinor and pledged not to disturb the peace of the Blessed Realm ever again, the remaining Feanorians should be free to govern themselves for the most part.

Nursing fresh grudges in the uncertain dark, many of their proud hearts would have rejected such a compromise, but here in the sweet moonshine, when they were all once again rejoicing in the pure airs of paradise and the very flesh of their newly-minted bodies, none of them could have.

Marilwende took the offer, sealing the pact not with a bow, but with a handshake, and the Valar on their part honored their agreement and Manwe, insofar as he was still involved in its administration, eagerly treated the settlement of Formenos no different than any other sovereign fief under his rule, without even a thought of retribution – almost as if there had never been any serious legitimate reason to mistrust the Valar in the first place.

This agreement, known to Valinor's legal scholars as 'The Statute of Formenos' would in fact set a precedent for how the various Moriquendi would be dealt with once they began to be released from Mandos in great numbers.

Before the Darkening, there had never been more than perhaps a few dozen or so residents in Mandos at any time – there was, of course, Queen Miriel, and before her a few unlucky souls who had died on the great journey, and once in a while a few Nandor, Sindar or Avari would turn up after some unfortunate household accident, but all in all, there were simply not very many causes to die from between Morgoth's imprisonment and the day he returned to terrorize middle earth once more.

Before the destruction of the Trees, most of the first generation to come to Valinor had yet to be reunited with whatever family members had stayed behind. Any that had found themselves let loose on Valinor had usually just joined themselves to the people from the same primeval clan, and while the Trees still shone, it was, of course, easy for them to walk in their light and obtain all the same blessings as those who had come here before them until they were indistinguishable from the general population.

Now, alas, great numbers of Sindar and Nandor were expected to be arriving, people who had their own language, and their own complex culture and sophisticated traditions which they would not be likely to gove up after being violently ripped from their beloved homes.

They, too, had this same law applied to them and were given leave to establish their own kingdoms or communes and govern themselves if they so wished. Before long, an intrepid bunch of Sindar had staked out a nice patch of forest next to the lands which Orome himself had seeded with trees from middle earth because of his great fondness for them, untouched ancient wildwoods save for the hunts of the great Vala and his orders, and perhaps the handful of times that some band of adventurous Noldor had gone hiking through it. Soon after it was marked in the maps as 'New Doriath', and the Nandor took some of the lands the periphery where the woods were thinner, and various settlements of inland-dwelling Teleri popped up around it, and wandering bands of Sindar or Avari were told that they could go right back to wandering, or build themselves small villages if they so desired – though many of them who had lived under Noldorin Kings in places like Hithlum and Lindon chose instead to join the settlements on Tol Eressea in great numbers. The people of Brithombar and Eglarest, however, seamlessly joined themselves to the shoreland kingdom of Olwe. One would assume that he had much to discuss with his brothers once they were reembodied.

It even turned out that some Avari of Tatyarin descent had established a sort of sophisticated kingdom in the far east centered around a mighty sorcerer-king by the name of Tu. It was them who, in fact, made first contact with Men, though little exact details of this had reached Beleriand owing to the great distance, the relative briefness of Mannish generations, and the Edains' general tight-lippedness about their early unfortunate dealings with Morgoth. He ended up making the Men fight the local elves and wreak devastation of their realm by the time he'd taken control of the – long story short, these too were given their own land if they so desired and their ruler was allowed to keep calling himself a king, though quite a few of them went to check out Tirion, Eressea or Formenos – apparently, there were not a few among their number who thought they would have liked to take Orome's offer if they had been around in their parents' day.

In all this many would see the fruit of prince Finrod's wisdom, judging now that his once puzzling plea for Lady Marilwende's release had turned out for the better in the end.

Marilwende herself, however, refused any additional titles, saying that she could only make a temporary agreement until Formenos' rightful rulers returned.

Next time she saw her father was at the assembly of Finarfin's lords, were she was introduced as the Princess of Formenos, for as such she was still held, and the many craftsmen and artisans under her rule had ensured that she would be splendorous to behold when she arrived there.

Her devotees brought her fine robes to wear of the rich velvet fabrics she had preferred, as well as hairpins and barrettes adorned with pearls like the ones she used to wear back in Thargelion – but though these were made with flawless Valinorean pearls that were in every respect finer and shapelier, she was often quoted to have still yearned back for the ones that had sunk beneath the seas with her body, bought and crafted by the hands of her beloved.

She never once sat on the rose-gilded thrones of Feanor and Finwe, even once they were restored to their old brilliance and newly encrusted with artificial gems, ruling that they should be left bare for the return of their rightful lords.

This she spoke with such faith that none should gainsay her, so that the ornate chairs long remained empty and untouched, reserved as symbols of those absent even when high guests were coming.

Only many ages later, when Celebrimbor was at last released from the halls of Mandos after a good thousand years spent in recovery, did she take his hand and lead him up to the place that had been reserved for him.

He was now the Head of the House of Feanor, and as such free to do whatever he wanted, whether his father should like it or not. It was then that he made for Finarfin's palace to formally pledge fealty to him, desiring to right the wrongs of his ancestors by unifying the realms of the Noldor once again. But Finarfin took him by the shoulders even as he was still in the process of kneeling down, and lifted him to his feet, stating that he still considered himself Celebrimbor's great uncle, saying that he wanted nothing more than for the old feud to be forgiven forevermore, and naming the former Lord of Eregion 'King in the North' - this was held by some to be an exceeding undeserved generosity while others credited it to the great, renowned wisdom of Finarfin, though those who had known Feanor in life believed him fully capable of murmuring still that it should have been 'High King', but Celebrimbor no more grudged Finarfin the rule of Tirion than he'd resented Gil-Galad's overlordship back in Middle Earth, and he was not going to start now that he had been all-too recently reminded of his own shortcomings; The memory was only renewed once Finarfin prodded him for news of his daughter after the ceremony was done.

But even if it weren't for his shortcomings, rather than boast proudly of supreme rulership, he would much prefer to take a smaller, subsidiary realm where he could decide everything in detail and pursue his scientific pursuits more efficiently – and Formenos, as it had become under Marilwende's leadership, was just about perfect for that.

Nor did he put Marilwende out of a job, since he spent so much time in the forge, at his sketchboard or at his desk that he was fully glad to let someone else handle meetings and supplicants and the like, someone who actually enjoyed it so that he might concentrate on his true delights.

He also left her in charge whenever he'd go visit his grandparents – this included the ones who were still scribes in Tirion (and promptly looked to set up a young cousin he'd never met before as Formenos' court scribe, being in some ways scarce less opportunistic than their daughter when it came to their ambitious of putting the family ahead) but most of all he loved to spend time with Nerdanel and her kin in their settlement near the halls of Aule.

Having resigned herself to the certainty that she would never see any of her children or descendants again, there was nothing that could have brought her greater joy than her grandson's return, unless Maglor himself would have shown up at her doorstep.

She tackled him into so magnificent a bear hug that she lifted him a good ten inches off the ground though he had been taller than her for thousand of years at this point – seconds later they were both lifted off the ground by none other than Mahtan Aulendil, who greeted his illustrious descendant with a big grin bursting with pride.

This was shortly followed by the assault of an impressive number of very curious red-headed cousins, most of which greeted Celebrimbor more like an impressive celebrity than a long-lost distant relation, but had no doubt that he was most definitely a member of their clan, blue blood or not.

Even Aule himself had sent for him – in total agreement with Mahtan, he had apparently decided that after being so vilely deceived by Sauron with the promise of studying under one of Aule's disciples, he very much deserved to be compensated with the real thing, and was welcomed there with great honors – apparently, the smith of the Valar had been a longtime fan of his, not just of his skill, but of his philosophy, his purity of essence, in the way that he had always sought knowledge and creation for its own sake and shared it freely without a hint of greed or craving for glory, and how he had freely shared his works and discoveries with others, looking for the betterment of the world at large, beyond just himself, or even just Eregion or the Elves.

It was now that Celebrimbor learned a great many things that he had been previously unaware of, some crucial context to understand his own story. This included a handful of very embarrassing anecdotes from Sauron's 'youth', but also reports that Aule had actually been an admirer of his grandfathers' before relations between him and the Valar had soured. Curufin had, of course, neglected to tell this to his son.

He was also told that Aule had once been among the most eager to bring the Elves to Valinor – at first, he'd maintained quite a bit of a lingering soft spot for Feanor and his family despite their estrangement, but after his eventual ugly deeds and the flight of the Noldor, he had kept all the more of a grudge (in that, he was perhaps not unlike his creations, the Dwarves) and it was a while before he smiled again upon Finarfin's remnant or could be moved to pity for the remnant across the city, keeping his doors open only to his immediate followers and faithful devotees who had never left at all. All this, however, had changed with the arrival of Earendil, in particular, what he told of the great marvels of Gondolin, and how they had come to senseless ruin through the hands of Morgoth – and when Earendil came, he had worn upon his breast a token from his mother, an example of Gondolin's lost glory.

Celebrimbor understood then – the green stone he made for Idril, the one who netted him the chief artificer post, in his own eyes but a vastly inferior trinket compared to the Silmarils, for all that it somewhat captured the light of the sun, though it had come in very handy to Idril in the end.

Despite this heroes' welcome beyond all expectations, he still missed the woods of middle-earth every bit as much as Sauron said he would when he'd tempted him with what had seemed like the means to stay. He had thought that coming here would mean the end to all the life he had known, but even when this had not proved true, his heart still burned with the memory of home – not all the time, but often enough. He tried to remind himself of when he'd first come to Middle Earth as a youth and would have been missing this while it would have been the plain of Himlad that would have felt strange and cool, but it wasn't really comparable. The brief light-drenched strip of time at his beginning had quickly been buried beneath the eventful years and centuries that had followed – now he had spent two solid millennia in the outer lands, two-thousand years' worth of solid, heavy memory, dense and precise enough that he found himself back there whenever the slightest thing reminded him –

He'd had much cause for happiness here and by all means, should have been exploring all the new possibilities that this place afforded, and on a purely physical level, it was so much easier to simply exist here being what he was, but instead, he came to the unavoidable realization that Sauron had known his weakness well.

Usually, whenever something would trouble him like this, he would go seek the wisdom of Galadriel, but she was still an ocean away, and who knew what she might be enduring – he hoped only that his creations would at least be helping her somewhat, for all that this could hardly justify all the destruction that had come of them.

It took him quite a bit of courage to invite Prince Finrod to Formenos. They had not seen each other for many years, not since he was a youth, and then there was the matter of his father's actions, not to mention his own – if his sister had forgiven him, he didn't really think that his response would be much different, given that he had always been the gentler of the two, but Celebrimbor would still have the awareness that he was being humored, forgiven and endured and well… it might have been his own shame that he did not want to face.

But he did and invited Finrod over, and he came and brought both his wife Amarie and their three little blonde daughters – Marilwende had an absolute field day entertaining them, and at one point even took them outside to build a snow-elf while Finrod and Celebrimbor had a long conversation.

Though his stay in mortal lands had been shorter, he understood the principle of it.

He talked much about the pools and rivers, and the multitude of carvings he had chiseled into the walls of Nargothrond. Celebrimbor understood that last one very well sighed deeply, and wondered if the stone pillars of Eregion missed him at all.

"That reminds me of this talk I had with Beor once," said Finrod to that. "He said he was glad that he had brought his people to a beauteous place where they could have a better land, and how he had seen them build their homesteads after my brothers and I had shown them how, far beyond anything he could have imagined in his youth. I realized then that his people had a very different relationship to the works of their hands. For Men, they are something which they leave behind to their children if they have them, or their communities at all – it outlasts them, and they find meaning in leaving something behind in the world, of having added to it though their visit was only short. They may indeed be here for that so that they add something with their brief works and actions. And in theory, we too are here to add to the world's beauty – only that in the case of our works, we will most certainly outlast them. We have to let it go and leave it behind, especially on that side of the sea – it's very dangerous for any of us to get too attached to any of our works… In the end, all must be surrendered to a higher purpose"

"I know, believe me…!" he shot back, unwittingly revealing some of the fire he always tried hard to be contained. "I know it very well. But it's hard…."

There was, however, no trace of judgment in Finrod's glance. If anything, he looked sad.

"Excuse me, friend, I did not mean this as a dig at you or your family. It happened even to Turgon in the end, and he is my best friend and one of the most far-seeing people I have known. It happens to the best of us – we must simply be a way of it and refuse to let it get the better of us."

"You make it look easy – you and your sister."

"I had merely accepted the inevitable. Neither myself nor my sister are as strong as you think…"

"And she is still across the sea –" Celebrimbor mused gravely. "Along with my mother. I'm not sure if she'll ever have the prudence to come here. I am her son after all, and look what I did."

"...your mother? I thought she died when Orodreth did."

"Well, believe it or not, I thought the same at first."

* * *

I caved and did make up names in part to have the contrast between "stuff as remembered in middle earth" and "stuff as known in Valinor" but also because they're largely outside the contexts of their relationships here so it wouldn't really make sense to use the epithets.

Also yeah, 'Darling' lives, more on that once I type down the rest.  
At first my idea for her ending really was just 'Death by Glaurung', but then I decided that I could do a bit more with that, creates a nice sort of symmetry where each of the three has a different fate – one died, one left, one stayed past the first age... Since she was the most shady, anything less than being stuck fighting Sauron for an additional thousand years wouldn't really make a satisfying conclusion. Or at least this way is more fun/interesting to play with than "she was stuck in Mandos a really long time". More on that soon.


	9. (Appendix III, Part A)

_You call when you want it_

_Everyone wants something from your soul_

_On the molly, someone's friend is talking_

_Like they know, oh you're on it_

_I just want to be your pretty girl when you want it_

_You know what you want _

_it's only 'bout the money and control_

_Can't step off it, someone else will cop it_

_Like it's gold, you're a prophet_

_Someone's going to profit_

_Don't you know, I just want it_

_Cause I only think about you_

_And what it's like to walk around you_

_And why they like to talk about you_

_'Cause I can only think about you_

_Oh, no apologies, twisting your word and your prophecies_

_Oh ooh, and honestly, it's the price of the prodigy wannabe_

_(- From King Princess' 'Prophet')_

**) Beleriand, the guarded Plain, Late First Age**

The sack of Nargothrond was a brutal affair.

But is often the way with great injustice that it hits those the worst who were already among the downtrodden for many other reasons while the shameless often find the means to slither their way out of it.

To begin with, the mother of Celebrimbor would not have stayed back in the caverns with the young children and their parents.

When she was young and reckless, the words of Feanor had inflamed her to bold action; Now that she was bitter and ancient, the speeches of the Black Sword sufficed to the same end – Ere Nargothrond fell she had become one of the most fervent supporters of open war, a far cry from the vain lady who had once stoked fear and reservations alongside her husband, yet no less fell than she was then, no less crass in pursuing her shifting aims – The only difference was that she used to have much more to lose, and many a vain hope of straining far beyond her means.

She would have set out to war on the open plain, where thought of flight would have been more plausible than in the very tunnels of the hidden city which were soon to transform into the many blind ends of one single great fiery death trap.

Second, she was a skilled smith and as such would have been considered much more valuable as a living, laboring thrall than as a corpse. They would need her alive, with all her limbs intact.

But no amount of skill or credentials could have saved her if she had gone in sword shining, declaring herself proudly as a member of the house of Finwe, like she certainly would have just a few years before; Morgoth did not like having doors slammed in his face, and Morgoth did not like having swords poked into his feet, nor did he enjoy being named a coward, or any sort of reminder of his unfortunate time in Namo's jail. That was kind of part of the reason why he had sent his great dragon to go and scour Nargothrond in the first place. His orders to his slavering orc-hordes had been such that princess Finduilas was certain to be killed, even if the convoy dragging her onward should never reach Angband.

But here is one thing to keep in mind, regarding those orc-hordes: Morgoth was a bit short on them at that time. Not for long, not too significantly, not enough to help the denizens of Nargothrond one little bit, as long as the dragon was there to fill the holes in their formation with his bulk.

The Nirnaeth Arnoediad had become so entrenched in the memory of later days as an absolute, crushing defeat that no one could imagine that it could have gone any other way, even if the troops of the free peoples had at one point made it past the gates and, for a moment, struck fear in the Dark Lord's black heart – their fall seemed inevitable, set from the beginning beneath inauspicious stars, or so hindsight would make it in the history books.

In the light of all the suffering and deprivation that should follow, it was hard to forget that the battle had been close;

That was the whole point: The plan was to assail the enemy in such might that he would have no choice but to sent forth every last of his creatures and monsters until all of Angbad was loosened, and that indeed had come to pass:

Hell was empty, and all the devils were there.

The enemy had won by a margin thin as a razor, and every bit as sharp on each side of its double edges. The need to commit all his forces was meant to leave Morgoth especially vulnerable to defeat, but that risk went both ways, if it was not in truth greater for the attackers, for Morgoth cared little for any single orc, werewolf or dragon and was sure to replace them in time if he could fend off his foes at all, while human lives, however valiant, were all too easily broken, and every elf, once extinguished, would take invaluable stores of knowledge and experience with them when they vanished from these shores.

Great slaughter they wrought on the servants of darkness, possibly more than on any other single day, to be surpassed only when the Balrog armies marched on Gondolin;

In many ways, it mattered little. They could have taken ten of Morgoth's warriors in exchange for every single of their own and would still have paid more dearly than he;

As far as the consequences go, 'almost winning' is functionally indistinguishable from 'never winning at all'

But there was at least one differing consequence: Morgoth was sort of short on orcs for a little while.

The raid on Nargothrond was, in a way, intended to remedy that. Nothing pleasant had been purposed for such captives that would not be more useful being worked to death in the mines and smithies of Angbang.

By the time Gondolin was to be sacked, there would be orcs to spare. Even now Morgoth was not exactly experiencing a debilitating shortage of them, besides, the might of the dragon had patched up the holes in his front lines well enough – but the number at his disposal was not infinite, which meant that some thought had to go into where they would be used.

Ideally, they would be herding the _priority_ prisoners – the wife of Curufin would certainly have been among those, had she announced herself or been treated by her peers with special honor; But she had not much respect left to her name among the soldiers of Nargothrond, which meant that the guard escorting her to Angband was a Man.

Not just _any_ Man – She knew him. He used to work with her once, not closely, but often enough. One he called her lady, now he lead her forth in chains – but any observer would have accounted him prouder and mightier in the past: She had seen him in the strength of his youth, outfitted with sturdy mail from Belegost, commissioned by Maedhros and paid for from the coffers of Caranthir. He was much better fed then; The realms of East Beleriand had been wild wartime holdings but still this fellow would have tasted the ease of law and order, the manifold benefits of knowledge to his everyday life, access to good healers; Who knows if he would even have grown to manhood if his parents hadn't been taken under Maedhros' protection after they stumbled across the mountains -and all this he had paid back with treason.

Now Lady Steel-Gleam would love to say that she saw it coming, that it was only a matter of time given Maedhros' tendency to take pity on all the people with the worst reputations and made them his allies. She'd heard some people saying that in Nargothrond: First he takes the northern bands of Sindar that were rumored to have come under the enemy's sway, then he takes in the one Man who claims to have been slandered and impersonated, and now the Easterlings? Eventually, someone in his ranks was going to have deserved their notoriety. Given the policies of King Felagund, the citizens of Nargothrond did not add the Dwarves to that list, though others might have.

Be this as it may, the truth was otherwise: The Lady had not, in fact, cared about anyone's suspicions, and thought herself clever and pragmatic for it. It might be said that she had not cared as much as she should about what their potential allies might have done as long as they were useful and numerous. Nor did she act out of empathy because she knew what it was like to be reviled and how not all that were mistrusted might necessarily deserve it – she was too proud to even _think_ of herself and her house as outcasts, only as temporarily embarrassed royals; Had they not lived as household of the crown prince for centuries upon centuries?

No, she would not have thought that she had very much in common with the rundown warrior who was now making her march before him though he seemed more tired of it than she was. He was a sorry sight. His teeth had seen better days, his once thick dark hair and eyes had long since lost their shine, his once luscious tawny skin now looked sallow, nor had he aged particularly gracefully. One can't assume that his thankless service in the Dark Lord's legions would have helped much. With some amusement she noted that he still wore some of the armor he received from the lords he had betrayed, but most of it was replaced with filthy rags fit for orcs, and unlike them, he must have minded it; Corrupt or treasonous as he might have been, he was still a Child of Illuvatar and he had got a nose in the middle of his face. His hair would still have gone gray just from the passage of time, but it was hard to imagine that he should have been as stooped if he'd spent the last decades in a comfy orderly kingdom. Still he had his strong, thick arms, but it was evident that he would soon have outlived his usefulness, at least according to what Lady Steel-Gleam would have called 'soon'.

Still she understood quite well why he would march out for a master who had previously cheated him of his rewards – clearly he was miserable, and when one is miserable there's nothing as welcome as the chance to take it out on someone who had it even worse. Alas for him, he was about to lose that contest: Shackled and beaten as she was, the sight of him filled her with a spiteful poisonous mirth: "Oi Marbod! Long time no see! Remember me? I'm surprised that you held onto that helm I made for you. I would have thought that you would have been promised better if you went and betrayed my brother-in-law."

"Proud words from a thrall! Where _is_ he now? Where are your man and your brat? Where is your clan? Have you not scurried away under the nearest rock like roaches once you were beaten?"

She never exactly contradicted him.

"They say treason never prospers… I always used to think that the reason they say that is that they think it _ought_ to be this way, regardless of what actually is, but one way or another that line of business does not seem to have worked out for you or for me. Perhaps we were fools at it – thinking we were going to beat the orcs at their own games.

But either way, we are traitors. That's what the world is going to name us no matter what. So what's the harm in a little more treason? Let me go."

"Why?"

"Because from the look of you, whatever paltry rewards Morgoth has given you aren't worth the half of what I'm carrying on my person right now."

"As if you had any choice but to part with it - You'll be despoiled of all you have once we get to Angband."

"Yes. Morgoth shall despoil me. But will he give those spoils to _you_?"

He didn't contradict her right away. Later it would appear to him that she had somehow preempted half of his thoughts; Indeed she paid very close attention to every slight stirring of his facial muscles; Failing to anticipate what he was going to do or think would surely have cost her dear: "Sure, you could kill me right now and take it all for yourself, but even in your better years you couldn't have killed me so fast that your new friends wouldn't hear me screaming and wonder what you're doing with the Dark Lord's loot – and even if you managed it, you'd only be pricking yourself in the foot, because I'm more useful to you alive. If you're noticed, are you sure you could fight your way out of the convoy without me? For the same reason, you'll understand that I'll want to keep my sword.

You won't get another chance like this, at least not that you know of – You can run and fight now, but how about in five years? Ten years? Somehow I doubt that the Dark Lord shall be all that generous with the retirement money – you would have gotten more from us. But that's in the past, I know – I no longer have any realms to speak of and neither does my ex, whatever stone he might be hiding under. Now that Nargothrond is gone, there aren't many places left, and neither you nor me will find any refuge in Doriath. I've heard that a lot of people are making for the mouths of Sirion, but if I were you, I would grab your spouse, your children and your most trusted friends, and make for the wilderness beyond the mountains. If you ask me, this whole place is going down and naught will be left of it by the end of the century."

"What's that to _me?!" _the Man retorted. She had him listening and thinking for a bit, but now she was losing him. He seemed to think that he was being mocked. "I will be long gone along with all my blood, since my only son saw it fit to get himself killed for your lot, and the Westrons that have scorned us!"

"Oh! He threw his lot in with Bor."

Lady Steel-Gleam knew that she was not doing her case any favors, and yet, she could not suppress her bitter laughter. "Stings, doesn't it? I bet he was one self-righteous little brat, just like my Celebrimbor… He ditched us when his father and I turned against King Felagund. To think that _I_ would have anything in common with the likes of _you!"_

Evidently, she thought this to be the most ridiculous thing she's ever heard, but she knew to get a hold of herself before her captor's indignant growl could translate to direct action: "Some might say that you and I were rewarded exactly as traitors deserve."

"Don't you dare compare yourself to me, white-fiend. It was your lot that led him astray, to die alongside strangers from distant shores and the westerners that begrudged us any share in their wealth-"

"So because you didn't like them, you made it so that _no one_ has any wealth, least of you. I get it, I too was reckless in my youth when I didn't realize what I had to lose. Cutting of your nose to spite your face seemed like _such_ an important thing to do. But look at you now. What do you really care about your foes anymore, or whether or not you spite them? What do you care of vengeance? What's it to you if they happily dance in the meadows? Your own life is the last thing you have left. You won't be useful to your Master for much longer. You'll be reviled and branded a traitor wherever you go, but if you made it to the mountains with my harness and the last of my bangles, the Dwarves will find your gold as good as anyone else's. Or, if you don't have the guts for that, I'm sure there are at least a few hidey-holes left in Beleriand that might serve you well for another twenty or thirty years… That's all you're going to need. I can see why you don't exactly care what Morgoth does with this world, after all you won't have to be in it for very long. You get to leave, lucky you! And poor me, for I will be stuck here until all this hovel breaks apart beneath me, trapped with Morgoth and his ilk, and if they kill me, all that waits for me is a marginally more pleasant prison-house on the other side of the sea; And Morgoth, with his slave pits, might do worse to me than your sword. But if I _am_ to stay here, I would much rather prefer to keep this flesh, and if you must die, I'm sure you could find a better end than such death as the service of Morgoth shall provide to you. What do you care about Morgoth? What's Morgoth ever done for you? Forget him. Forget the western Men. Forget me, and just Let. Me. Go."

So it was that Lady Steel-Gleam escaped, with nothing more than her sword and the breeches and undershirt she had word beneath her armor, stripped of all she had stolen when she departed Amon Ereb. She even left the beads on the cord she'd been using for a hair-tie.

No one was more surprised by this than Marbod the Easterling, who after much experience with the Ocrs and their corrupting influence on his own people had expected her to try and ditch him the moment he unhanded her. Instead she snuck him out of the caravan with only a few complaints about his noisy Mannish steps, fought down any pursuers until the pair of them had shaken them off, and handed over all the loot that she promised. She wasn't especially faithful or generous in any way and scarce concealed her disdain, but she had evaluated the situation and readily decided to part with her things. He simply had not given her any particular incentive to stab him in the back. For all that she would have been accounted one of the more devious ones among their number, she was still one of the Eldar.

Of Marbod the Easterling little more is known, perhaps because he wisely counted his blessings and lived quietly, staying out of any further tales.

Months after this event, a small band of survivors crossed the blue mountains, most of them Sindar and Nandor, but with them was a single woman of the Noldor.

They didn't exactly know who she was, but even before the second kinslaying, a very close-lipped Noldorin warrior would have been viewed with some suspicion – She would not have chosen the company of fools. Her affiliates more or less assumed that she was a kinslayer and a deserter from the Feanorian realms; They could tell that she must have been a formidable leader of some sort. She knew this, which is why she was rather motivated to demonstrate her utility with haste.

Her strength, boldness and experience, but above all her cool head, did very much to aid in their escape and by the time they stood atop the mountains, gazing over the wide, wild land beyond, she had become something like their comrade.

She had stood atop the same Mountain pass once before, more than four centuries earlier, with Caranthir, Celegorm and Curufin by her side. They had been so very tempted, so very curious for the great unknown beyond, and none more so than Curufin. She had practically felt the waves of burning desire radiating off of him – but still he was the very first to turn back and say they could not go further, not yet, not while their oath was still unfulfilled. She found that convenient and reasonable then, to begin with, she'd been a lot more interested in the part of Feanor's message that involved 'gaining great realms' and not so much in 'exploring the unknown'.

Later, once those realms had been won only to be lost, she had often wished to escape either that way or to the south, especially in their time at Amon Ereb; No, even when she, Curufin and Celegorm had found out that Galadriel and her husband had made the journey across the mountains, all their hearts had seethed at once. Celebrimbor, of course, didn't get it. He found it amazing and admirable, and had gone on about how Auntie Galadriel must be amazing and what not. They were all together then, unbowed and bold.

Thinking of it now stung her heart, for all that she kept reminding herself that she could not afford such softness. It would be several decades until she learned how exactly he had died, but in her heart, she knew then that Curufin would never cross these mountains.

She wouldn't go so far as to say that she missed her family; She wasn't there beside either of them because of her own choices, because she had chosen to escape with her life at every turn, or 'sanity' as she may have defined it; She still lived, so any complaints on her part would have been hypocrisy.

**) Eregion, Ost-in-Edhil, Mid Second Age**

More than a thousand years later, the Lord of Eregion received an application regarding someone who was looking to officially join the jewelsmith's guild. Normally this would have been some underling's duty, if it had been one of their apprentices or some other citizen of Eregion looking to join through the regular channels; If the parchment wound up on his desk at all, it would be because the applicant was some sort of traveling stranger. Even that was not so rare as to cause a stir, but as it was, Celebrimbor still consider his position as the leader of the Gwaith-i-Mirdain to be his primary occupation to which even the administration of the realm at large was only a subordinate means, another tool to make sure that nothing would stand in the way of progress and advancement.

His heart remained with his forges or, if we are to be generous, maybe with his sketchboards, bookshelves and desks as well, but administrative details like this could only ever hold part of his attention, the rest would have been scattered between his latest projects and larger secrets of the universe.

He only skimmed the text at first, looking for something that might indicate in how far this applicant might be worth considering, a dry businesslike assessment at first which then gradually piqued more and more of his curiosity, but never quite enough to detract from his much stronger preoccupation with The Project that was still simmering away in the vast mansions of his mind. Apparently this newcomer had been part of a wandering company and had parted ways with them when the other members decided to pay an extended visit to some relatives in Lorien.

Well, they called a visit, but if they needed a break from the wandering which many among their number would have been pursuing from before the sun and moon, it would be because they had found the world itself changed. Surely, they'd end up coming up with more and more reasons to extend their visit, and when they finally left, they would be making for the shore.

It was a retreat, like many others – or it was quite likely to become one, if nothing were done.

Even three generations down the line from the cosmic mishap that had begun his lineage, Celebrimbor still possessed more than his fair share of strength but he knew that it was only a matter of time before he would be feeling the effects as well, perhaps all the more for being an existence that could only have come into being in the ancient world, before all its energy and heat had scattered into entropy. He'd known this would be coming when it was still a purely theoretical matter of the sort that Finrod would like to speculate about. He was, of course, long gone now, a myth of bygone times. The lord of Eregion supposed that others saw an exalted relic from those same times when they looked at his face – but in truth, he often felt like he'd pretty much only just missed the boon times by a frustratingly narrow margin. He spent but a very short time in Valinor; For most of it, his family had already been estranged from the Valar, and the last bits of it were spent in exile at Formenos. It's not like he truly had any time to learn from the Valar, he was young, _very_ young, when his people departed, too young to swing swords of swear oaths. He got a _glimpse_ of the world at its zenith, but little more, the Noontide of the Blessed Realm was practically over by the time he could understand what was going on around him.

If only Melkor could have let those trees stand for just a few more centuries…!

But the Greater Light That Was had come and gone; Whatever improvements he might have made to the art of capturing light, he would have to content himself with trying it out on the rays of the sun, and even those weren't exactly what they used to be.

On one such errand, he had gone to see Galadriel. At first not all had been certain if Amdir of Lorinand had made the right decision in consulting her skills for the improvement of his kingdom. Not all there had been in full agreement with it, indeed one of Celeborn's own kinsmen by the name of Oropher had struck out on his own with a bunch of loyal followers, looking to continue their old way of life undisturbed.

Now that Galadriel had more or less been given free reign, however, and especially since she'd come by those Malorn Seeds courtesy of the Numeroans, well – what she'd done with the once humble woodland kingdom had soon made it a renowned, almost sacred place to the remaining Eldar in middle earth. Most common were the comparisons with the enchanted realm of Doriath, whose Queen the renowned lady had studied under, but Celebrimbor himself had never been to Doriath while it stood, and thought of different parallels, back to Valinor across the sea where all things must be untouched still, or perhaps even further back even past either of their times to whatever memories of the yet untarnished world Melian might have told her about, the results of the original great plans that only the Maiar and Valar would remember, another lost world that was now a buried layer in time.

When he'd seen it, he'd felt many an old memory stirring, including many that he had not thought of in a long, long while. He never stayed too long, lest he be too tempted to see the western shores again.

He wasn't sure how Galadriel could stand it – most likely, not at all, not forever. She might be the mightiest incarnate spellcaster since Luthien of Doriath, but even her marvelous handiwork was a house of cards built on sand, and the tide was coming in.

Long, long years she had been desiring a realm of her own. She had never rushed it, always patient, always prudent, never giving in to spurious shortcuts or unfounded hubris. She had not only pursued her grand ambitions, but done it _right, _never letting her dream be tainted by selfish attachment like his father and grandfather had done – and through that wisdom and prudence, she had actually archieved it and lived to attain all that she wanted after so many others had crashed and burned with their outstretched arms still reaching for the dreams they never grasped.

Celebrimbor had always admired her for that.

But now when she finally gained all that she sought, it seemed like she could do little else but to regret the past she left behind, not that she would ever have admitted to such longings.

Of course, she would have lived in the unfading lands for many centuries. Having known a world nearly free from decay, she would miss it; at least she would have a more definite conception of it.

All memory of it was bliss itself, but his was only a thin strip of light from the very beginning of his life. Already it seemed to him a lot like the half-dreaming daze at the beginning of a day, something incongruent and impossible in the world as he had known it for most of his life. That, in itself, might be considered a sign that he had tarried in these parts for too long really ought to get himself on a boat sometime soon. It would probably have been considered insulting if he had compared that merely sentimental uncertainty with the complete and utter mystery of the Great Beyond as mortals experienced it; even compared to most other elves he would have a fairly clear idea of where he would be going.

But still...

He did not want to go. Not yet! Not yet! There was so much more to be done, so many possibilities left to explore, so many impossible feats that were yet to be made feasible. Should he be made to suffer the indignity of leaving behind all he had made, with his own hands, to the glory of his own name, to crumble away like a child's sandcastle on the beach when playtime is over?

Not yet. Not like this. He was not yet sated of this world, nor did he think he would ever be, and he was sure many of his subjects thought the same; Many had fought long and hard and survived the ravages of Melkor to defend _this_ world and the freedom they had come to seek here.

It was all the more important then that he should keep his projects and investigations going…

And unlike _certain_ people he was descended from, he understood that he could not do this alone. Even the greatest genius was not so all-knowing that he could not learn or find inspiration of others of his caliber – who knows what his father and grandfather might have attained if they had actually cooperated with the other great minds of their times instead of hoarding their discoveries away in indecipherable notes?

Thus his policy had always been one of cooperation – with the other realms, with the Dwarves of Kazad-Dum and even some of their occasional Mannish allies – as of late, he had even enlisted the aid of a Maia. Rather than jealously guard his secrets, he worked openly and closely with the other members of his guild. The synergistic workflow- and process they had designed and refined over many years was perhaps his greatest pride and joy besides the resulting works themselves; It was how the smiths, artificers and inventors of Eregion had surpassed all that came before them (except one) – He did have moments where he wondered if some of this wasn't due to some lingering distrust in the soundness of his own judgment, or simple proof that he could never hope to match his grandfather's work be it with or without help, but as he kept busy, they were fairly rare.

He had far more to be proud of these days, solid achievements of his own that he could stand on and greater problems to consider that went far beyond himself.

In the end Celebrimbor decided to go see the applicant.

Her credential sounded impressive indeed, but also, somewhat too good to be true; The stranger had gone so far as to claim that she had worked under the man who "practically _invented_" the discipline of jewelsmithing, a brazen lie indeed to be telling to the face of the man's own grandson. But as such he was uniquely well situated to either confirm or deny its veracity, so he thought the quickest way to find out would be to meet with her in person. If she were truly one of Feanor's old apprentices, she might be a great help indeed and would make a worthy addition to the guild, but there weren't too many of them left on this side of the sea and he knew where most of them were.

But when he glanced at the top of the document to check what her name was, he snapped his quill clean in half, splattering ink stains all over his desk.

Whoever she had spoken to had marked her down as 'Lady Tincfael', Gleam-of-Metal, but she had insisted on having it be mentioned that her proper name in the ancient tongue was Arqueniel Nornien from the House of the Ledger, 'Tenacious Nobleman's daughter'. She used to prefer 'Arqueniel' back in the day, more amenable to her vanity, perhaps, less blatant, but the 'tenacious' part had proven true indeed for her to turn up alive after all of these years.

Unseen in his study, a sequence of emotions passed on his face; but he did not leave his desk until he had composed himself.

**) Eregion, Ost-in-Edhil, Palace Courtyard**

She had not seen him in a good sixteen centuries.

He was older now than his father had ever lived to be, and come into his full power and mastery.

She remembered the person he was when they parted ways before the doors of Nargothrond where she would later seek him in vain; even that last meeting in the camp before the great battle was pristine in her mind – but if she tried to find his likeness again, she would still come back empty-handed: The person he was back then was gone like smoke.

Striding down marble stairs, passing under arches, between slender columns he strides through a world of his own making. The scattered bits of open architecture resemble a great wide pleasure garden more than a city, but every detail is planned out, every bough and branch ordered in a triumph of mind over matter; The environment is more artificial than the carven halls of the dwarves and the very air hums with the magic that suffuses the stones, but these are aesthetic, sophisticated mechanisms so perfect that one almost didn't notice their presence.

It might not be the most beautiful nor the most glorious or the most renowned, but while it stood, Ost-in-Edhil was the single most advanced city anywhere in Arda, and that spoke for itself.

So what if its ruler wore only a simple wreath of holly, so what if Gil-Galad still held the silly circlet that could have been his by right?

Clad in a slate gray sleeveless tunic, with several metal chains thrown about his neck and his hands still in his work gloves, he looked every bit the wild northland king that he was born to be, bright and masterful. Likeness of Feanor had at last returned to this world again, and if he could not quite match the memory of his ancestor in its sheer radiance, he was nonetheless more than that: An incarnate vision of what he might have been, if he never lost his way, the old dreams imperfectly attained and crowned with brittle splendor.

She had not witnessed this as it happened, but she could imagine; In a way his newfound confidence seemed more natural to her than the idea that it would ever have been absent from an individual with his abilities; Probably he'd played the humble penitent at first, and gone around introducing himself as 'Celebrimbor the Craftsman'; But a man could only stand hiding himself for so long. Once things started going well for him he would have made sure to mention his post in Gondolin and the fame he attained there in the last forty-odd years of its standing, and when this garnered him respect and influence and the star of his fortune rose, he would surely have remembered that he was descended from Mahtan Aulendil, the safest branch of his family perhaps, but of that kindred, only few had come to Middle earth, and by then he would have been dealing with enough Lords on a regular-enough basis that it would simply be very practical to stress every now and then that he had his own share of blue blood. Lady Tincfael didn't suppose that he'd ever bothered with with the trite little emblems of the House of the Ledger, even she had never much done so save for lack of better options, and her son still had claim to what these days had come to be referred to as 'The Sun of Finwe'.

A complete anachronism of course; There _was_ no sun back in Finwe's day. The famous emblem with the golden ring and the many orange spikes in fact depicted a stylized campfire; In his youth, the first king of Tirion was the first to come up with the method of bashing pieces of flintstone together to produce sparks. But that was already a story from a bygone age by the time that Tincfael herself was so much as born, when the king had long since hung up his sword and put his days of inventing behind him to rule over his city in ease and bliss, in glory days that were now as far removed from the present as the dark days of Cuivienen were from Tincfael's own birth.

But Celebrimbor was an inventor still, and even to call him a quite accomplished one would be a criminal understatement. He was the best in the land far and wide, and he was not so stupid that he wouldn't know it – one day, one would presumed, he had simply thrown up his arms in frustration and started putting eight-pointed stars on everything.

The Lady had seen a startling amount of those just from making her way through the city; There could be no mistaking its ruler.

She could not force her will upon him when he was young, polite and apologetic, so what hope might she have now that he had attained by his own means and merits what none of her bungled endeavors had availed? Once she would have accused him of ingratitude but it was clear now that none of what he had scorned her for had been needed sat all; He'd succeeded just fine without her involvement.

In his steps was the sort of calm confidence that was founded on undeniable accomplishments, in his face, restraint. Of course this might have been different if he'd come across her without prior warning or the time to compose herself; Had he perhaps simply spotted her on the streets instead, his response might have been more immediate, less diluted, perhaps swinging wildly one way or the other depending on small gestures or particular phrasing – but whether the steel of his face held back fermented old wrath or unlooked-for relief right now was impossible for her to say.

His voice was smooth, confident and unreadable:

"What are you doing here?"

She did not quite look him in the eye.

"Who knows?" she said, a tired suggestion that only echoed the audacity of her younger years. "Is it so strange that I would yearn for the company of my own people?"

"Don't play games with me. You could have shown yourself here at at any time in the last eight hundred years. You could have gone with your company to Lorinand, but you didn't."

"Oh, so you think I would be allowed in there? _Me? _There's too many survivors from Doriath and Nargothrond there, with their children and children's children. They would know me in an instant. Sure, I wasn't _with_ your father when he sacked Doriath, but if I went and claimed that, would anyone believe me? Besides, someone might decide that it's not quite too late to avenge King Felagund upon my head-"

"Oh please. They're not _kinslayers_. Though I suppose a kinslayer would assume that everyone is their like, much like a thief."

She flinched, for all she'd tried not to. It was like she was the child, and he the was parent doing the scolding.

"The only thing you had to fear was facing your own shame, if indeed you ever possessed such a thing, and it wasn't just your pride that would refuse Lady Galadriel's mercy."

"Like I'd want her pity!"

"Watch your tongue. We might have had our… creative differences as of late, but the Lady is an esteemed friend of mine. You will hold her as such; It's the least you can do as penance for what you did to her brother.

Look at yourself! You're washed up. A mere shade of who you used to be. The words of Lord Namo have been made true indeed with you! You should know better than to resent Lady Galadriel for succeeding where you failed miserably; the fault for that lies wholly with yourself and your recklessness and folly. You never had what it takes.

You didn't come here before because you knew that Lady Galadriel or someone in your retinue know your face. And now you think you're just going to waltz in here, unbowed and unashamed, and be received in honors… to be 'Queen Mother'… That was always your aim to begin with, wasn't it?"

If Lady Tincfael could have seen her own face, she might have noted a great resemblance to the look on her son's face when she once caught him with his hand in the cookie jar.

Though she balked at this in indignation, she found no words.

"Save your breath-" the imperious Lord before her sternly admonished her anyways, "I briefly met with Lady Tale-Weaver before she sailed west. She told me everything. It is not for love of virtue that you forsook my father – you simply _ditched_ him when he ceased to be of use to you. But to think that you had the gall to make off with his treasure… You know grandfather would have pulled a sword on you for that, right?"

"I guess he was right not to let me in the vault back at Formenos." she retorted, somewhat more petulantly than she had purposed.

At this, the Lord of Eregion condescended to a thin, cold chuckle. "Actually, it was Uncle Caranthir's lady whom he was most suspicious of. He implied as much to me once; Apparently she was too friendly with Lord Fingolfin and his house for his liking… She was friendly with _everyone_ though."

"Well, some say Opposites Attract..." she replied in some token effort to be in on the joke.

"I take it you're more of a believer in 'Bird's of a Feather'. But in the case of you and father, it seems like they only flock together until the cat comes."

At the end of her road, Tincfael stood chastised, rebuked and thoroughly humbled, struck by every hard beat in the melody of his voice, all lines of arguments and clever, soothing words she had prepared crumbled like shards before her mind's eye.

There was no way she was talking her way out of this one, or to explain away the crushing awareness of how much real hope she had pinned on this encounter, for all that she had successfully convinced that this was just another expedient means of grasping what she wanted, first of all survival.

She did not think that his glare had always been so piercing – off balance, she scrambled to make her case. In a sense, his father's more contemptuous mood had made him more predictable, easier to get a handle on – she didn't know what to do about a stonewall like this.

"Look- I- I only did what I thought was best for you. To put you ahead. To secure your status-"

"Don't you mean what's best for yourself?"

That was not even a particularly cutting remark; Even his anger was a stale, tired thing he had no time for. "I must admit that you took no small risk to get yourself in grandfather's good graces, though you loved your own hide too well to attempt it more than once."

"What do you mean?"

"_Me._ Your all-important royal meal-ticket. Too bad you miscalculated. You should have thrown yourself on Fingon instead."

In her face, rage warred with fierce humiliation until both lost out to resignation.

"Please believe me-" but she realized at once how unconvincing that sounded. She would have rebuffed herself with mockery if she'd even been presented with such sentimental grovelling.

"I'm proud of you. I really am. For centuries, I'd heard tales of what you've built here, but now that I've seen it with my own eyes, it surpasses all imagination… You've actually attained it, all that we were seeking to gain - and you've done it all on your own. In the end, you didn't need my help at all- You've surpassed me. Long, long time ago. In fact, I believe you may even have surpassed your father. You're brilliant – just as he was, if not more. But you didn't squander it all away with pointless vanity projects, no… you're were shrewd, and sensible, just like your dear old mother, though I'll never know where-"

"...where I got my conscience from? Who knows. Maybe I learned from Felagund."

Though his voice was quite even, there could not have been a more seething condemnation.

"...please. Let me be part of this. Please don't keep this from me, I don't think there's anything left in this world that I want quite as much as to work here, in this very city-"

Her voice was raw and genuine, which surprised him more than anything in the preceding conversation.

"...You really think that I was going to cast my own mother out into the wilderness with the orcs? Then you really have become warped by your shameful deeds."

"You mean I can stay?!"

"Yes – as Lady Tincfael of the House of the Ledger. I have a use for you, that is – for an apprentice of Feanor. But don't expect to be sitting at my right. Do we understand each other?"

She had really seen no choice there: "Understood..."

"By the way..." he remarked then once the business was taken care of, taking his sharp glance from her face and directing it instead at a curious detail he had noted, "...are you still carrying that Sword father made for you?"

"I- I was going to make myself a new one, but I never could get my hands on the right supplies..."

"You mean you never managed to match his skill, even though you probably tried for all these years every time you had the chance."

She was half expecting him to just leave her standing there to be someone ease's problem but then he waved for her to follow: "Come along. I'll show you how to make a better one."

**) Eregion, Ost-in-Edhil, Jewelsmith Guildhouse**

Soon after her arrival in Eregion, Tincfael of the Ledger was given room and board and admitted as a member of the jewelswith's guild. Her accommodations were not in the palace, nor was she introduced as a person of rank to the council of lords and ladies.

But she came into the guild-house and imperiously set up such supplies and work places as had been assigned to her, and not even miffed about it. It had been a long, long time since she'd had access to good equipment, let alone the opportunity to acquire any sort of knowledge that was altogether.

She had missed it dearly and seized this opportunity with relish. Having lived through this cooled-out world she knew more of its value now than she ever could have as an ambitious youth with more zeal than she knew what to do with.

It was not commonly known that she was Lord Celebrimbor's mother. Neither of them ever explicitly denied it, but neither did they announce it, that is, _he_ didn't, and trusted if nothing else, that she would keep quiet rather than confront why she was in the proverbial dog house right now.

It was assumed that they knew each other – whenever they met while discussing their projects, they were quite familiar and sometimes even short with each other. Many pieced together that she was a deserter from East Beleriand, and that explained their being acquainted well enough.

She carried her weight and made herself useful; That's how she had always endured. Many of the younger guild members had an automatic admiration for her even just from the heavily censured version of her life story that she would discuss in polite company, which soothed her tired soul more than she liked to admit without embarrassment, but she was glad to take it, even if she remained cautious to display too much relish where her son could see; She knew exactly how he'd take that.

If once or twice she led it slip that she knew him from Himlad, the story essentially rearranged itself as it would quickly be assumed that she had remained behind in Nargothrond, so that she could right back to relating her adventures from just before that realm's fall where they would be lower on incriminating details. Tincfael liked it in Eregion, for the most part, and if her life so ffar had succeeded in teaching her anything at all it would be to give up complaining and know to appreciate her good fortunes where she found them.

**) Khazad-Dum, Royal Quarter, Guest Suites**

But one could not work day in day out of the same endeavors without a certain familiarity setting in, especially where they were old friendly patterns and habits waiting below ones' heated feelings ready to snap back into place, and how heated could their feelings really be with so many silent centuries to think it over?

They would be clearing up the workshop after work and fall into casual conversation, or, he'd take her along on an errand to Khazad-Dum because she was one of the very few who could at least understand some of the local language and knew something of Dwarvish customs.

Of course, she came as a member of a lord's entourage, not as a curious traveler bringing her impressionable son along of errands, and the Khazad-Dum she got to see was not what it had been just a few centuries earlier, for both Eregion and its neighboring realm had much profit from their exchange, and Celebrimbor had his hand in the sculpting of buildings that had since become famed historical sights to the later generations, but there were a few twilit moments when it felt quite a little bit like their occasional trips to Belegost at the darkling dawn of a rougher-hemmed world; As a formal delegation, they could not have been further from hooded travelers, but when they met with each other lounging in their accommodations with the finery left behind for convenience, their faces would look exactly the same as they did then, enough so to remind them sharply of the absence of another particular face for all that neither of them desired much to think of it.

It was in such a mood and moment, looking out over the deep reveal of the mountain from foreign walls that a long overdue conversation passed between them, more than a thousand years after their parting and several decades after their paths had met up; Her sober face turned away from the chasm, at the tail end of a conversation that had trailed off when the subject of a certain blacksmith came up and stopped both their thoughts in their tracks, she volunteered the thoughts of her hair like casual, trivial observations:

(In Eregion, they did not so much say that something was 'Water under the Bridge' as 'Land under the Sea')

"You know, I won't say that I didn't desert or betray him, 'cause I did. But I could not follow the path he was going. It was _stupid._"

At this he looked not with much sentiment, but not without understanding either, and looked her straight clean in the eye:

"And I could not follow the path you were going. It was _wrong_."

"I see." she replied, not having much else to answer him without further gathering her thought.

"You know, I loved those times you two took me to Belegost. The memory of it will always be precious to me… when I heard what you and father had done, I couldn't believe it.

_You disappointed me,_" he said, and the judgment was harder with age, yet it was tempered with wisdom as well:

"But do you know what the hardest thing is about being disappointed?"

"Suffering the knowledge of what a fool you have been?" She mused, with a certain sardonic tinge to her voice. "Wondering how you can ever trust your judgment again? Or is it realizing how it doesn't go away even when you know that you never ought to have believed in the first place?"

He shook his head no.

"Once I would have said that it is knowing to step away, having to remind yourself time and time again to let go - both of the fondness for that which would lead you to your destruction, and the wall of rage you built up to separate yourself from what you cannot excuse. Both can drive you away from your own good… both are reminders that you cannot trust your own heart and mind. But by now, I've come to admit to yourself that the very worst part is really what the very feeling of disappointment reminds you of. That it's there because of how much you used to _love_ what wound up disappointing you…"

She couldn't help but know what that meant.

"I came to look for you, you know? At Nargothrond. I was told that you died. They said that only one of your company ever returned, and he was taken prisoner. He told me not to expect to hear of you ever again."

"I heard the same of you!" he replied in accusation.

"Believe me, if I had the slightest inkling that you were alive, I never would have left Beleriand-"

"Then would it have killed you to let me know you were alive in all these years?"

"I didn't think you'd particularly want to hear from me."

"Oh of course. I didn't _want_ to want that, but that's not exactly how it works, now is it? You're only my only family left in this world. I shouldn't want to want the slightest bit of anything to do with you, but you know what it is.

I have come to find that simply _wanting_ is the most humiliating thing there is. But by the Stars, I want! I could not be an inventor nor a lord if I didn't, so I don't think I could even truly want to silence that part of myself, burning deep inside of me… even if it is said that curiosity is itself a kind of avarice. Though I would hate to profane my craft as merely the means to sate my greed. When I say that I want, I mean that I truly _do_ want – I… can't let myself lose sight because of my limitation. The truths and answers that I am seeking are much to important for that! They matter for so much more than just me."

There was no need for him to explain his feelings on this matter; She understood them well enough, and he must have known this from her eyes. He continued to let himself say curious, unexpected things in front of her from that moment onward, things she didn't expect, words that ran counter to the answers he thought he would want to hear of her.

**) Ost-in-Edhil, Jewelsmith Guild house, Central Forge**

Still there was some residual hesitation in the bits he let slip through; not that he still graced her with that special confidence that most men reserved for their mothers, but thoughts that were still steeped in enough shame that he would falter in baring them even before someone he'd long since condemned:

"Do you remember grandfather's speech? How he promised you and the others that we would be lords of unsullied light?"

"How could I forget? The taunt of it still rings in my ears. You've said it best yourself: Look how well that turned out for us!"

Others might have grown mildly concerned when he didn't join in in her tirade, but kept looking at her straight and earnest, but she was simply surprised, enough so that she nearly dropped what she was holding.

"No, you don't understand. Our people became as we are through exposure to the light of creation, as it was held within the Two Trees. He never felt at home in Valinor, but for all his stubbornness, he must have known that he could not have been what he was if he had not been one of the first to be born beneath the light of Valinor. He could not have existed as he did without the light – nor without the taint that our ancestors carried with them from right here when they journeyed to the west. He raged against all that was unfair in his life, all the ways he felt he'd been wronged and disadvantages… but for all that he lost, he also gained power beyond his measure, even though he already was a prince and child of the ancient world. Is that not also unfair? Chaotic? Maybe that's why he always longed to come here – why so many of us longed for this place and still cling to it – though we are beings of the great abundance of the ancient world which this side won't be able to sustain for much longer. We came to be as we are through our time spent in Valinor, and that's why we have no choice to return there… allegedly."

"Now wait a moment- _Allegedly?_"

"Our departure was rushed, premature, tainted by bloodshed and precipitated by disastrous events, but grandfather had been planning to leave since long before. Don't you think he thought this through? Don't you think he considered how we would continue to exist here?"

Tincfael was as stumped at this as she was when she saw him make her that new sword whose make far exceeded his father's work – from the back of the workshop came a dry chuckle from an unobtrusive figure that had so far labored meticulously in the back: "Methinks the Lady has not that considered this yet."

Tinfael had seen him many times now, though he never struck much of an impression. He was clearly one of Celebrimbor's inner circle, but he looked like any other smith, except that he was taller than most and that some days, sometimes, she thought there was something particularly keen and striking about his gaze in a way that was vaguely familiar, though she could never quite say what it was. He had always flown vaguely under the edges of her perception, a helpful, faithful toiler in the background, until he'd sometimes say something that seemed perfectly innocuous on the surface, just at the right time.

She had honestly never thought of him much, before she'd begun to notice that her son seemed to have involved him on all his most grandiose, important projects to the point that it began to beg the question of why that may be:

He was almost an aggressively unremarkable figure with mousy brown hair, a servile, repressed, stickler-for-rules sort of type with precise technique but little in terms of actual creativity. She honestly hadn't spared him very many thoughts for decades on end before his presence began irking her, because he'd do things like smile at her with seeming innocence and ask things like:

"Do you think he just made the Silmarils to keep them for bragging rights in his vault?"

"It seemed that way, sometimes." Tincfael shot back.

"Oh, but how would you know, Lady? Excuse me if I'm wrong, but if I understood this right, none but Feanor's sire and his direct descendants were allowed in his vault?"

Tincfael was about to get irritated, but looking upon both of them with fondness, Celebrimbor diffused all tension with a laugh and a headshake:

"No, no, Annatar, the Lady is exactly right! – we often look for the one true reason in our actions that unmasks all others for pretense but the truth is that we often have more than one reason, and we act when enough of them align. My grandfather was not a selfless man." he said, irreverent enough that one might almost believe that he was no longer daunted by the old master's shadow, as if he was trying just a little bit too hard to say, 'Yeah, Feanor the Radiant might be a legend, but to me he was just my kooky old grandfather'

"Really, he's like those lords who refuse to pay tribute though it is their tax revenue that maintains the roads that their prosperity rests on! There is no one who doesn't benefit from others. There's no one whose achievements don't rest on the words of their predecessors. It's precisely because I know that that I have made it a policy not to refuse any help that might benefit my work, even if it comes unlooked for – it is for that reason that I have welcomed even the two of you."

That _did_ merit an eyebrow raise, just because it implied that their might anything particular special about the joyless, overly proper weasel that was Annatar that could merit similar amounts of doubt than what Celebrimbor might have felt about Tincfael herself, all the more surprising since the mysterious smith did not mind the comparison: "Well, nothing worse than working with some stubborn person who insists on refusing your help, right?" he said mildly, perfectly inoffensive where he'd only just looked like he was looking to test the waters beneath that same polite veneer, as if he'd never heard her disdain – but he was not just relenting for a mutual friend, rather, it seemed like he had thought so far that it would be pleasing to Celebrimbor to ever so subtly look down on her, but hadn't quite grasped what the exact relationship was between them; The moment her son had shown another side to his feelings, he seemed to have decided that he would do better to ingratiate himself – and so far, she wouldn't have thought much more of it that what she used to – that this Annatar must be something of a servile suck-up.

But his words were not only too courteous, but too well-calculated to come from a mind of weak powers, too like to her own unacknowledged thoughts… enough to catch her attention once and for all after elusively hovering at the edge of her perception, and, not at all unintentionally, leave her at a bit of a loss. "Yeah…"

But this did not surprise Celebrimbor. He smiled to himself like this was the expected result, as if he thought this Annatar a formidable being easily capable of besting even the sharpest of tongues.

That, however, did irritate Tincfael just enough for her to get her act together: "But I wouldn't say that they're the worst."

"Oh? So the Lady still holds some old loyalty for her old allegiance?"

That _did_ seem awfully well-calculated to get Celebrimbor to chide her, at east under the assumption that he was simply her lord and she just another survivor from Himlad; For a mousy boring stooge without a mind of his own, wasn't much surprised at all. But she wasn't going to let him have the satisfaction of seeing her through:

"Not at all. I'm speaking only as a creator and as an artist. Stubborn lonewolf mavericks might be irritating, but at least they know to mind their own business. You know what's really the worst? Someone who wants all the scale and grandeur of a group project, but doesn't like to share the glory. If you borrow the might and power of others, you might archive greater results than you might be able to get on your own, but that means you'll have too let others have a say in your decisions. Not everyone wants to pay this price, so they start bossing others around. It's the most fundamental nature of tyranny: To reap the harvest of multitudes without paying your fair share or distributing their gains!"

To this, this Annatar said surprisingly little, except what he probably thought would be flattering: "But cannot a greater mind sometimes see farther than all of its peers, and should not a greater vision like that be given precedence?"

Neither of the elves really dared to say no. Celebrimbor might have, once upon a time, before he had followed that same reasoning in resolving his 'creative differences' with the Lady Galadriel.

But the Lady Tincfael regretted her following after Feanor and Curufin only so far as it hadn't netted her many benefits, so she wasn't quite so daunted:

"Perhaps… but it is not said that when Morgoth first descended upon this world and demanded to be Lord of it, Manwe answer was that he could not allow this because the work of others besides him had also gone into the world? Not that I would take either of them for my lord, but, that would be because I wouldn't want either of their fingers grasping after the work of my hand. And if you truly disagree with this, then why aren't you on your way back to Valinor?"

"Too true," said Celebrimbor before Annatar had the chance to incercede. "As I said, my grandfather wasn't a selfless man, but he was not a tyrant either. He is not someone I would emulate, but that it not to say that he wasn't admirable in some ways. He only ever followed his own heart, marching only to the beat of his own drum. I stand by what I said: No man is an island. No man is truly independent from all. But grandfather came as close to it as any Elf might. Because he would not compromise his vision, he labored by himself and worked on his own as much as he could, depending on others as little as he might. He was nothing if not consummate – so much so that my father and uncles were brought up in the wilderness. Indeed, he was so loath of being another's pawn that in the end it was that very fear by which he was controlled. The world was new then and few had yet learned that sometimes the very act of avoiding something at all costs can bring it about.

But at the same time, I do not think that he was wrong in wanting to make his own path away from Valinor."

"Oh?" note Annatar, subtly pleased by the declaration. "But how would you purpose accomplish this? The Silmarils are lost, are they not? Or do you intent to seek your inheritance after all?"

Celebrimbor gravely shook his head.

"I'm sure grandfather meant them as a way for us to leave and yet take the light with us, so that it might sustain us, as well as our new realms in this land. But that was before the Darkening, when there was no shortage of light. He was right to say that the Valar should not have kept it all to their own little realm; They admitted as much when they came here to deliver us from Morgoth and set what remained of it up in the sky for all of us to see. But it was too late by then. Only a sliver of it remains – barely the twinkle of a star when the light of the trees once used to fill up the entire skies above Valinor. The moment the light failed, making the Silmarils its last remainder, grandfather ought to have thought not of his plans, but of the world, and the common good, and _all_ who need the light; and my uncles should have thought it good that the people of Sirion were using one if it to purify their water of Morgoth's poison and prosper among all the destruction. The light belongs to those who need it, and I lay no more claim on it than I might claim the land, the seas and the air for mine own.

No – I intend to do this through the work of my own hands alone."

"So let me get this straight… you're telling me that your aim is to _surpass the creation of the Silmarils?!_"

"But nobody knows of which substance they were made, right?" said the Annatar as he poured the granules of metal into the mold, handling the flasks and vessels with a casual ease that suggested that he could hit the sweet spots in the delicate mixture with only just his eyeballs. "And no one shall know until they're retrieved at the breaking of the world, or so the story goes."

"Old Feanor always _was_ awfully secretive about his notes…" Tincfael admitted, sounding rather pessimistic.

While she carefully fanned the flames to just the right heat, Celebrimbor went about stirring the contents a translucent flask in just the right angle of the moonlight. "Not exactly. We don't know what grandfather used, but that doesn't mean we don't know how he could have done it – All it means is that we cannot determine which of several possibilities he could have used unless we could examine the jewels themselves in our own hands. We don't have that option, so, it is true that nobody shall ever truly know…. "

"...but you have your suspicions?" Annatar had voice the thought before Tincfael had dared to conclude it.

Celebrimbor smiled. "The thought came to me when I recalled a story that Felagund told me. A legend of sorts, among the Men of Brethil, concerning the offshoot of the Edain that is known as the Drue, the tale of the faithful stone. I remember him telling it to me, pacing around in excitement with the Nauglamir upon his breast; He was speculating that, since there were three kindreds of the Eldar, there might be a second offshoot of mortals somewhere out there… it concerns one mortal using a primitive enchantment of sorts to transfer some of his own spirit into an object, a doll of sorts in this case that could act as a guard while the actual guard was away on business. It wasn't really anything extraordinary, a makeshift solution for want of more sophisticated alternatives, and very, very dangerous, but the more I think about it, the more I think that it cannot have been anything else…."

"How so?" Annatar's disbelief was, if anything, far deeper than Tincfael's, enough for him to be unusually open with his disdain: "What could such a silly parlor trick that even _mortals_ could pull of possibly have to do with the Silmarils? We're not talking about measly sticks of stones here, but about a vessel that could hold the very light of Illuvatar!"

"That's why." said Celebrimbor, his face resolute with conviction. "That light is older that anything in this world – my grandfather didn't make it, and neither did Yavanna. No material within the bounds of Ea, made of its imperfect, incomplete materials could possibly withstand it."

"Well you must be mistaken!" reasoned Tincfael. "There must be _some_ such material; The Silmarils obviously exist!"

"But they _can't_."

"So you've realized as well?"

Annatar was by no means in agreement, which Celebrimbor did seem to note with some degree of surprise: "I know the fabric of this world as intimately as the back of my hand, and I have been asking myself that very question since the dawn of the First Age. By all rules and laws of nature that are known to me, it should be impossible for them to exist!"

"Well obviously they do exist! One of them is up in the sky right now – it seems rather pointless to argue that it isn't."

The Lord of Eregion did not seem at all fazed by any supposed impossibilities. If anything, he seemed to find something amusing about this situation. "Isn't obvious?"

It wasn't.

"Something from without this world – something eternal, that doesn't decay. Aside from the light itself, there is only one known substance that fits that description."

Up until that point, Tincfael had raised an eyebrow at Annatar, but taken him for what he appeared to be – some ambitious suckup mainly, perhaps someone after Celebrimbor's secrets and influence. But where any Elf would have been awed or stunned, he spoke now with adamant conviction, like someone who had stood at the roots of the mountains when they were raised: "That cannot be. If that could be, I would know it, like I know every other material in Arda; I know the all, and I know that there is no such thing about it."

Later this would give Tincfael much pause, but right then, she thought it irritatingly simple-minded that he would assert the infeasibility of a known fact, and had other concerns: "Where'd you find that? There's nothing left. The pure untarnished creation remains only in the Silmarils. Everything else is tarnished, tainted – marked with Melkor's influence, too impure to withstand light, and too unstable not to crumble without it. How could you end change with something as your tool that is itself changeable?"

But the grandson of Feanor remained perfectly undeterred, calmly shaking his head.

"It exists. And it is very abundant. It's nothing strange or rarefied like that."

For various reasons, it dawned on Tincfael first. "You mean-"

Nonetheless she was quite shocked when he nodded, and confirmed that thought outright:

"Our Souls. For myself and the Lady here, a bit of it would have come from our parents, but, in the end, the initial spark of it would have come from Illuvatar, much like you did."

For very different reasons, both onlookers ended up making a rather similar exclamation : "Wait, what?!"

"Oh right…" Sighing in a sheepish manner that looked out of place on the lips that had just voiced such stunning conclusion, the Lord of Eregion aimed conciliatory gestures at the both.

"I can probably tell you at this point…"

Neither seemed to be too certai which of them he was speaking to… the answer, of course, turned out to be both:

"Annatar, the Lady Tincfael used to be wed to Curufin of Himlad. And Lady… Annatar here was the high-smith of Almaren while it stood, a disciple of Aule."

"Then would that not make her-"

"He's a _Maia_?!"

There was something to be said for the magnitude of his theory that neither of the two dwelt for much longer on those revelations than it took him to keep on speaking of it: "Be that as it may, the proof of concept exists. A mere mortal can do it, albeit one of a kindred that is more attuned to the stuff of Arda than most of them. But in the end mortals aren't very strongly linked to this realm. Coming directly from the One and only him, they would do better than say, Dwarves or Ents, but..." As he continued to expound on this, he gestured first to lady Tincfael and then to his own chest: "Our kind is meant to remain here for as long as its lasts. Our control over the elements of the world that make our flesh is much more complete, and much more long-lasting. And you," he contiued, now addressing Annatar directly, "...probably have some portion of your power suffused into the fabric of this world right now, that which you put into its making. You made your form like I made your bangles. If anything, our capacity for such a displacement should be greater than any mortal's."

Hearing this, Annatar's face unveiled a leer packed with all seven deadly sins, but Tincfael thought naught of it, for she would have done the same, had not her far more breakable nature brought a different concern to the forefront of her mind: "But Felagund's story speaks of naught but a temporary parlor trick! You're talking of having someone permanently tear off a physical piece of their soul. Doesn't that sound dangerous to you?!"

"Danger is how a narrow-minded coward speaks of vision." countered Annatar. Few would know where his meek veneer was in that moment; The finality in his voice left Tincfael with very little doubt that he was, in fact, one of the Ainur.

But against either of their expectation, Tincfael's son agreed with her: "That's because it _is_ dangerous. Our souls were never meant to go in material vessels. You could tear my body to shreds where I stand and my soul would show up in Mandos without a scratch. But if it was bound to an object, this would be very different. Even with the primitive, temporary displacement practiced by the Drue, the caster would suffer injuries if the vessel is destroyed. And that's still a reversible process." he mused somberly. "Come to think of it, it's not so strange to think that my grandfather would come up with a method like that. He might have been the only one who could have worked it out – through a whimsical accident of nature, he was born with an exceptionally powerful soul. And yet he was certain that he could never repeat the creation of the Silmarils. Three pieces was the limit even for him. But he was born in a different time, in a golden age of near-endless abundance. He thought only of preserving and containing power, not of using it to do anything. Even if he had the mind, the skills and the means to devise something like what I'm suggesting, there was no need for it in his time… And now that we_ do_ have need of it, has become impossible."

Of course, Annatar was the first to ask the dangerous question: "And why might that be?"

Celebrimbor was clearly flattered, but not enough to disregard his conclusion: "It is beyond me. I might have grandfather's blood, but it's much too diluted. I might have one shot at this, at most, and if I don't succeed on the first attempt, I would most certainly not survive."

"But didn't you say-"

"I said what I said. I intend to do this with my own two hands, but right now, I don't have the means to do it."

Torn between despairing at the madness that her son was suggesting and raging at the flimsiness of the hope that would spare her the inglorious return trip to Valinor, none of Tincfael's attention was sufficiently focused to pick up the signs that the one calling himself 'Annatar' had just gotten everything that he wanted, laid out before him on a silver platter, ripe and ready for the taking:

"What if you left the part of the medium to someone with greater natural strength?"

"You don't mean-"

"I could do it." said the Maia, long since pulled back into a picture of dutifulness when all attention in the room turned to him. "Like you said yourself – it would be fairly easy for myself to por some of myself into the elements of this world – Was I not there at its making?"

"I- I can't ask this of you. I couldn't. Didn't you hear what I just said about the danger? Sure, with your strength, I wouldn't be surprised if we could get several dozen pieces, but-"

He caught himself, but some part of Celebrimbor's mind was already racing with the possibilities, meaning that the Maia had him exactly where he wanted him to be.

"Listen, this could be dangerous even for you. More dangerous, possibly – since you're _all_ spirit. I know this must have been a much shorter time for you since you've been here since before the world, but – we've been working together for many centuries now. You're my _friend_. I trust you more than anyone. You cannot take that risk-"

"Oh, but I can. And that's why we must do this. Because we can. Because we alone can do this. If no one ever took any risk, how could there ever be anything but stagnation?"

Annatar had the Lord of Eregion moved to tears, grasping his hands with quivering lips, but Tincfael was not so convinced: "Waait what? You're just going to volunteer?! Just like that?"

But of course the lord of gifts was prepared even for this, and struck with mild-mannered scalpel-cut precision: "Do not resent her, Lord Celebrimbor. Has she not often chided you because she could never understand the sacrifice of King Felagund?"

**) Ost-in-Edhil, Jewelsmith Guild house, upper floor corridors**

"I don't trust that Annatar." she said one day, leaning against a wall having closed a door behind her.

"Mother please. He's a servant of Aule."

"So was Sauron, back in his day. Wasn't Melkor himself a Vala just like the rest of them?"

"Now you're just rehashing grandfather's old heresies. We've been over this."

"Come on, Celebrimbor, you're smart. You must've noticed, too. Doesn't this all sound too good to be true to you?"

"Well, I'm not surprised that you think so."

"Because I'm a scoundrel, you mean?"

"I never said-"

"But you think so. And rightly so! Takes one to know one. How did your grandfather used to say? A Thief will reveal thieves? Just think. Look inside your heart and be honest with yourself. Somewhere deep down you must have been having your own suspicions for a long, long time. You have grown much, but I can still tell that much."

"Perhaps that is so. I do have his blood after all – and yours. But also deep inside me are the memories of what I saw you all become because you went on listening to these sorts of doubts."

Sighing deeply, Tincfael shook her head. "I suppose I have only myself to blame if you do not listen to me anymore. You were always such a well-behaved child…

But if you won't listen to me, listen to Galadriel then. Did she not also advise you against this? Sure, she might be insufferably sure of herself, but she survived this long for a reason."

"...Lady Galadriel will understand. I'm doing all this for her sake as well."

"Oh right. You think she will _thank_ you, don't you? You think they _all_ will. Elrond, Gil-Galad, … all of them. Just like you thanked me for conspiring to make you crown prince of Nargothrond. Or like your father thanked me for dragging him away from that Balrog during the year of lamentation, right? Believe me, if Galadriel wanted you to do this, she would have told you so. "

"Strange hearing this from you."

"Is it? You know what? You are right! I _do_ envy Lady Galadriel. I always did want to be mighty, and loved as well – and above all, I wanted to be special, and I knew I wasn't. That might be why I desired your father. You know the word is that neither he nor any of his brothers are ever getting out, right? By established precedent, I am owed the choice of Finwe. And I had thought of it many times, to just find someone else. He would hate it so much. But not a single Elf in this world ever matched up to him. They're all so slow and dull and boring; I can't seem to find even one that's so much as less worse.

He was so, _so_ special. He didn't even have to make an effort at it…. And he squandered it all away trying to match up to Feanor. Don't fall prey to that same mistake."

**) Ost-in-Edhil, Jewelsmith Guild house, restricted section**

She did not simply go and confront the Maia in person – she first made very sure to announce rather conspicuously that she would be meeting with her son and many other members of the guild later that evening, deliberately timing the display to be within earshot of her mark so as to disabuse him of any illusions that her sudden disappearance would not be noticed.

Only _then_ did bar his path in a remote corner of the guild-house, leaning broadly in a door arch taking up as much space as she managed.

She still didn't suppose that she would have looked all that imposing. Yes she had the blazing eyes of the Calaquendi but that meant nothing to a Maia. In build she was small but not slight, a stocky, compact, apple-shaped affair with straight, column-like limbs and her dark hair usually tied back in some practical fashion, not the big and pompous, muscular kind of strength but the quick, persistent endurance made to thrive through great deprivation.

"Oi you. Annatar! What are your intentions with my son?"

He wasted no time in throwing all her strategies for a loop by not even pretending to hide anything, and broke straight into a wolf-like leer.

Nothing about how he looked to the naked eye truly changed, and yet she was taken aback. Long irritated connections in her mind finally connected and she felt bared before his glance. She recognized now what it was that he reminded her of.

Once on a day of festival she had gone and met Arien before she had taken her place in the sky, but she was not like Tilion whom Celegorm had actually known and at times invited over to have a few beers and lament their lackluster love lives. Arien had been among the Maiar like Feanor was among the elves, and none could endure her gaze – certainly not Tincfael.

This here was only slightly lesser in magnitude and painfully similar in kind – though Arien's sort of radiance back in the Years of the Trees had been the light of the unsullied world, that glared but did not blind, and warmed the heart without burning the skin.

This man was something else altogether, and he was most definitely taunting her, for if he would, she would be nothing but a very burnable speck left before an outline of flame.

"If I gave you an answer, what would you do about it?

Go and tell him. See if he actually believes you. Oh, he might love you. He might even have forgiven you. But he'll never ever trust you ever again. -

Though I suppose you could go begging help to Galadriel. How about that?"

He would never have made that suggestion if he thought that there was any sort of possibility that she might overcome her wounded pride and humiliation for long enough that she might actually do this.

**) Ost-in-Edhil, Jewelsmith Guild house, Chief Artificer's personal office**

The absence of the Lady Tincfael was soon noted.

Annatar was not directly responsible, but certainly not ill pleased and hopeful that he had won the battle of wills here and would not be seeing her anytime soon. Celebrimbor certainly didn't think all that much of it, and if he did, a certain Maia did his best to redirect any budding pangs of worry into chalking it all up to their dispute and her generally questionable reliability which the Lord of Eregion did not need to be convinced of.

Not for the last time, Annatar should come to find that he had underestimate an enemy once dismissed as small fry beneath worry, for she did not stay gone for nearly as long as he liked and returned with the scent of sea-salt in her hair and the perfume on strange flowers clinging to her clothing, which her son swiftly noted once she came to see him.

"Have you been to Lindon?"

"Only in passing."

"Then where?"

"Numenor."

This surprised him a bit. He did not think that Tincfael had even been particularly interested in the affairs of Men. "How was it?"

"Strange." she mused. "A bit irritating. They were clearly Men, and yet a good part of the nobles looked ever so slightly like Turgon."

"Well, even among men, noble houses tend to marry mostly among each other, right? After all this time it wouldn't be surprised if most of them are descended from the royal house multiple times over… they say you can sometimes see Eressea from the towers on the westernmost harbors. Could you?"

There was something inexplicable nostalgic about some of the floral scents she'd carried with her…

"I don't know. I didn't really go looking for it, maybe the weather wasn't right….

But more importantly, I have proof."

"_This_ again?"

She did not even bother to try convincing him with words – if there was anything she was demonstrably good at it was traveling inconspicuously. She simply slammed the results of her search onto his table, deftly and elegantly opened the text to the relevant page, and began to read out loud for emphasis: "_And the stranger said __onto__ us 'I am the giver of gifts.' _I just _knew_ I had heard that somewhere before! Must have been Felagund with his endless rambles about Laws and Customs among the Edain."

"What is this?"

"It's an account of the early dealings the Edain had with none other than Melkor. You recall that they were always quite tight-lipped about it, don't you?"

"It's not like we had much to be proud of, either…"

"You should read this. No, really. It's _vile_. You could tell he had done it before. He fell upon them almost right after they awakened! At least our ancestors lived long undisturbed by the shores of Cuivienen before people started disappearing. We had advanced civilization by the time he tried messing with us. What chance did they have? He just literally threw them some measly peanuts and then decided to be worshiped for it. Tricked the whole lot – the whole original set – into speaking blasphemies unawares. Your father might not have known what he was getting into, but at least he understood what he was saying. Imagine being tricked into something like the Oath before you had the capacity to understand any of the weight of it! We didn't think you ready for it when you were younger than many of them got to be when their lot first came to Beleriand!"

"Of course not. You're not… Morgoth. I have no trouble believing that he would do such a thing, but… this just a legendary text, right? It's not like this was written by someone who was there in Hildorien to see it, the way that we heard the tales of the grat journey from our ancestors who had themselves been at Cuivienen. This is just hearsay, passed through generations upon generations from parent to child. They didn't even have writing…How accurate can this be..."

"Accurate enough to mention that Morgoth showed up with 'jewels in his hair'. Red-handed from King Finwe's murder, I dare say."

"Morgoth is gone."

"Yes, he is. But do we know this of all of his servants? Listen, do you recall how the enemy spread this rumor that it was none other than him who taught your grandfather the better part of what he knew? Why do you think he did that?"

"To make the Sindar mistrust us, of course. Though we need not have given him so many_ true_ stories of carnage and disunity for him to spread about us."

"Perhaps. But that one's not true at all. Prince Feanor hated Morgoth's guts from the moment the other Valar let him out of prison. I get that Morgoth's a liar, and that he just makes things up, but why that particular thing, do you know?"

"I suppose you shall tell me."

"Oh I will. But first tell me, of all the other Valar, whom dis Morgoth always hate the most?"

"Varda of course."

"No son. Varda is the one he _feared_ the most. She knew his deal before all others, and her powers are opposite of his. But the one he most hates was always Aule. Why, you might ask? He's not among his greatest rivals for power like Manwe is, nor has he inflicted such great defeats upon him like Tulkas and Ulmo have done. It's because he's a petty, petty Ainu. You never met the Blacksword of Nargothrond, have you? Well I have. It seems hard to conceive that a being of Morgoth's power might feel the need to personally spite a bunch of mortals who dared mock him to his face, but he did. Once, when he was ordering new gear for the armies as Orodreth's general and Champion, we spoke a little and seeing as I was a smith, he ended up mentioning how ever since childhood even his most trivial little arts and crafts project had a tendency for going inexplicably awry at the last possible second. That tells you something of our enemy's nature, doesn't it? Petty doesn't begin to describe it. The one he _hates_ most is Aule.

Now, consider us. If you asked the remaining servants of the enemy who among our number they fear the most, I don't doubt that the answer would likely be Gil-Galad or Galadriel.

But as for you…. Just keep this in mind: if I'm right, this 'Annatar' person might be needing you every bit as much as you think you need him, if not more."

**) Eregion, Ost-in-Edhil, Outer Palace Gardens**

"Did you ask him?"

"Yes."

"And what did he say?"

Celebrimbor surrendered to a bone-deep sigh. "He went on and on about how it shone like the stars."

"Most of the times, that would have been a good guess. Our people have always been rather fond of silver. Not this time, though. You probably don't remember much of Mahtan, but he did have this whole thing about copper - "

But contrary to Tincfael's expectations, there was no discussion to be had with him:

"There's no way I could forget uncle Maedhros' favorite circlet."

As thanks, Tincfael made some show of acting conciliatory:

"You know, I might actually believe that he used to be a disciple of Aule; I'll even grant him that he used to be some bick shot back in Almaren. But did he ever mention any specifics about what he was doing in Valinor? Did he bring you any news of Nerdanel and her kin? Any word from Felagund? Mahtan was one of Aule's favorite disciples ever. There's no way that your new friend worked there and never met him. You know that, right? Do you deny it?"

"I do not."

"Then will you finally believe your own eyes and ears?"

"I shall take precautions."

"Precautions?!"

"You've worked with me on the project. You know as good as I that we haven't reached our goal yet. If we stopped now, so short of the finish line, so close to all this potential, all this knowledge, and all the good that could be done with it… Well I am not going to ask you because I'm convinced that it would be criminal."

"So you would harness even the powers that want our destruction? Not even your father was ever that brazen-"

But this mention that she almost thought too harsh did not dent his resolve at all:

"I would grasp what we could not obtain any other way – for understanding, making, and for the healing of what has been destroyed."

Perhaps here was the point where Tincfael had to admit to herself that there was a limit to how badly she wanted to convince him; She _really_ didn't want to go back to Valinor.

"Then what do you purpose? String him along indefinitely?"

"Only as long as we have need of him."

"And then?"

"We deal with him."

Despite herself, Tincfael felt a definite wave of pride rising through her chest. She was rather glad that he allowed her to place a hand on his shoulder. She did not consider that he might actually have welcomed the comfort.

"That's my boy. What a shrewd, shrewd man you've become. You'll have my sword at your disposal, of course."

She thought this was a little bit like one of his father's schemes… though of course, she didn't tell him that, suspecting that he would probably have been offended.

She would spend much time wondering what might have happened if she had said that thought out loud.

**) Ost-in-Edhil, Jewelsmith Guild house, Archive**

Then, one day, there was a sound in the middle of the night, like glass clangering together and legs of furniture scraping against floorings.

Lady Tincfael stood, wondering after its source, but she suspected nothing of import when she made her way to the hallway to have a look around the corner, unhurried as of yet.

Mere Moments later she felt the grip of long, slender fingers on her forearms.

"Mother, I am _finished_!"

She had no idea what her son's wide silver eyes were looking at, but it wasn't her own person. Though angled her way, the look in his face was like a bell in motion, still ringing from the afterimage of something else.

He did not look especially disheveled as of now. Somehow that felt unexpected. His face was pale, his voice frantic, laden with a horror he would not have been capable of when he was younger, before he had known the leaden weight of being responsible for others apart from himself – but having gained a hold of her hands, he did what he could to steady himself, both in his balance and his thought, and with his breath not so much as half-caught, a new thought occurred to him, a dawning understanding:

"I must seek the Lady Galadriel."

His mother, still ignorant of the true magnitude of what had transpired, would have responded with moderate indignation, had he not cut her short himself in his desperation, words tripping over themselves before they could be answered:

"But how can I _face_ her? She led me in through her front door, and in her own halls, I-

How in the world will I ever face _Felagund_-"

"Now wait a moment – "

"I was such a fool. A complete and utter fool, doomed to spin in circles on the same crooked paths again and again, like my fathers before me!"

Having made such answer, he turned on his heels and absconded, but as he left, the one he left behind caught a glimpse of something glittering in his right hand. She must have felt it against her arm through her robes earlier, but could not clearly perceive its shape, since he held it wrapped in a handkerchief, as if he could not suffer its touch on his bare fingers, but in between there she caught sight of a glimmer of gold, and something more that glowed red like an ember.

**) Ost-in-Edhil, Palace, Council Chamber**

When the Lord of Eregion returned from Lorien, he was resolute, and had mastered himself enough to start out giving brisk, businesslike orders. Under the dreadful light of his burning eyes, his voice took on an imperious, almost compelling quality.

He called an assembly of his lords and thanes, but did not proceed tither until he had called for the Lady Tincfael to speak with him in confidence.

The questions that served as her greeting were almost silenced with a hiss; they took many turns before he directed her to his story, and at each of them he waited long to glance behind and make sure that they could not have been followed.

He did not say a word to her until he had inspected all four of the walls that surrounded them, murmuring wards into the stones, as if he felt the glare of some great unseen eye pricking ever at the back of his neck.

A ward was also on what appeared to be a perfectly regular bookshelf like any other in this room, but once he had removed the enchantments, he cast its contents down without a care for the tomes, vials and scrolls scattered onto the floor. This revealed a wrought-iron hatch carved with many symbols and sealed in place by complex mechanisms which its maker now proceeded to unlatch one by one until the sesame came open, but this small vault or hidden coffer did not conceal a hoard of gems or any sort of hidden armory, but a musty stash of yellowed papers, and hid among them was only one thing that even so much as hinted at its own outward value: A sealed chest that, to the Lady, looked very much familiar.

Some of the carnelians had come loose from the top and thus taken some spikes off the emblem of the eight-pointed star, and it still bore the shallow scratch mark from her very own attempt to break this thing open when it used to contain the most jealously guarded research notes of Curufinwe the Younger. But when it was thrust into her arms, she realized at once that whatever it held now was much lighter to her hands and much weightier to her spirit.

"Take this and run.

Do not under any circumstances open it. Do not surrender it to anyone other than Gil-Galad. Elrond should know how to open it; If you cannot make it, make sure it disappears in the bosom of the earth, but consider this only as a last resort."

After being led around in circles, she could not say she was especially impressed: "So it's as your little pet Maia said. You don't even trust me enough to let me know what in the name of Arda is going on here."

"I trust you to survive. I trust you to escape. I trust you to focus on getting away without trying anything foolish – for your own sake, if not for anything else, like when you escaped from the ruin of Beleriand."

That more or less said all that needed to be said – and still, he struggled somewhat here, to keep his gaze as hard as he wanted it. "Go on ...-! Get gone!"

Just what did he think was about to happen?

**) Eregion, Ost-in-Edhil, outer city boundaries**

There stood one at the gates. He was clad from neck to toe in a fearsome black armor of hostile shapes that felt wrong to even look at, but his face was one that many of the city's inhabitants would have seen inside their walls many times. Nothing about it had changed, and yet it seemed somehow unveiled, in particular to the fine senses of those who had dwelled in this city, his piercing gaze a blinding glare, like a dark twin of the sun.

"Give them back!" he cried aloud, shameless, bold and brazen.

"Give them back to me! Or did you forget that you didn't make them on your own?"

He would have worn the exact same manner of grin in the act of twisting a barbed knife.

**) Remants of Beleriand, Lindon, Royal Tower**

Even after she brought it to Lindon, Lady Tincfael was never exactly told what was in that box, but having been somewhat involved in the project herself, she could hazard a guess.

To be fair, his majesty the high king might not have been aware that she was more than a simple messenger, or at best a trusted member of the Mirdain; she got shooed out with his honor guard when the king retreated to take counsel with his herald, and once the pair emerged from the room, the first orders of the king were for his armor to be fetched and for his lords, ministers and officials to be called into assembly. There was an immediate assumption that Eregion was under siege – or that it _would_ be by the time their soldiers could be mobilized. This, at least, provided an excellent excuse for a messenger from Eregion to march on the front lines of that army; Clearly concern for her homeland and any loved ones she might have left there would explain any appearance of great shock; And all things considered, a citizen of Eregion who knew the land well would be a valuable source of intelligence in this time, so it would not even be considered strange for her to be going in and out of the king's hall, hearing news of all that had befallen; They could tell by the light in her face that she was well-experienced and older than them both, and had she not escaped with such precious, dangerous 'cargo'?

She looked and acted precisely like what she purported to be, mostly because none of it was a lie: she was pretty much what one would expect from a smith of Eregion or a 'Lady Tincfael from the House of the Ledger'. Being perfectly explained, neither king nor herald would see reason to suspect that there was anything more to her, let alone that she was technically one of their kinsfolk by marriage, for what little that meant: Up to this day, she had never met either of them; at most she might have glimpsed the son of Earendil from afar when he was visiting her son's realm. Celebrimbor certainly spoke of them now and then, usually with great esteem, so she had a few stories to go on, but for the most part they had been simple names to her, symbols perhaps, of their preceding dynasties; Impressions formed quickly though, seeing as she had the memory of their forebears to compare with. Gil-Galad was as warm and as valiant as his father; calmer, perhaps. Elrond, despite his dark hair, looked much more like a Sinda – a comparison with a dim, twilit memory of his foremother kneeling in the dungeons of Nargothrond yielded much in common. There was a lot of Turgon in his bearing though, in his temperament and character, he was most certainly Idril's grandson, cautiously pessimistic and unfailingly perceptive; Apparently he'd never trusted this 'Annatar' character to begin with, which surprised Tincfael not one bit – indeed it was his advice that kept the deceiver out of Lindon. In Tincfael's heart grew a sobering certainty that her son had turned to her in these last days because he'd known that she wouldn't have talked him out of the pursuits that his wiser friends had warned him against – and why wouldn't he? She'd loved to fancy herself a shrewd one, but had she not demonstrated a consistent gift for backing the wrong horse? Feanor, Curufin, Morgegil… Elrond defied the lady's expectations in at least one regard, however: There were no smug I-told-You-Sos whatsoever to be had from him.

Instead, he stepped out beside her into the moonlight one day as she was pacing in one of Gil-Galad's pretty seaside courtyards. Maybe it was a matter of her being technically under his command and thus one of his responsibilities; at the very least, it would be in his interest to make sure that she didn't become a liability.

"You must be anxious to get back to your kinsfolk in Eregion."

"I'm worried for my son," she admitted, unable to deny that there was some comfort in speaking it out loud.

She was not too keen on him finding out her association with the enemies of his family, but she was tired and did not think that he would be able to identify her from that detail along.

Later she would look back and wonder when exactly he had figured it out; Later still, she would learn that Celebrimbor never concealed her presence in Eregion from him to begin with.

**) Eriador, remains of Eregion temporary encampment of the free peoples**

In the events that followed, Sauron the Abhorred would prove himself a much more competent villain than his former employer had been, for all that he had been created with far less natural strength, and not just in the deception that had opened him doors and gates.

It is said that the lord of Eregion withstood Sauron himself on the stairs of the jewelsmith's guild-house, but unlike his former Master, the lord of Mordor was not entirely petty enough to let himself be goaded into even the appearance of a fair fight, and quite simply has his opponent grappled from behind by his slavering hordes; As dramatic and demoralizing as it might have been to simply leave him splattered before the broken treasury, the fallen Maia could restrain himself just enough to realize that his downed opponent was far more useful as a captive.

The troops dispatched from Lindon came too late; The best that they could do was to gather the scattered survivors and with them and heard their dreadful tales and even their escape would have been doubtful if their forces had not been bolstered by reinforcements from Khazad-Dum and Lorinand.

Lady Tincfael had been with the vanguard, and in seeing the devastation and hearing what had befallen from the survivors, she was overcome by a terror that she hadn't felt since the had surveyed the aftermath of the slaughter back in the year of lamentation.

The composure of one who had survived through many ages was not easily shattered, so she drew much more attention than she purposed when she was visibly taken aback in her dread.

Stunned and dumbstruck she continued her march, placing one foot in front of the other, ever on the lookout for orcs.

When the commanders of the would-be liberation force gathered round to discuss their course of action, her presence was demanded – not by Elrond, but by Galadriel.

Often Tincfael had spoken of one so esteemed and feared with the casual disdain of someone who had known her when they were both fiery ambitious youths more desiring of power than was probably good for them, but the difference between them had become more than apparent in the years since that, a distinction easily summarized as that between 'the real thing' and what is commonly referred to as 'all talk'. Galadriel had learned from teachers as great as Aule and Yavanna themselves and won their favor; Tincfael, too, had sought to acquire useful skills for herself, but while she learned much from Feanor, he revealed to her only a small fraction of his vast body of knowledge, and after that she wouldn't jeopardize her one certain connection to power by seeking her luck in other places… and was this not in itself an admission that she never had the will or confidence to pull it off? She never had Galadriel's patience because she wasn't certain – instead, she'd felt like she'd have no chance without resorting to underhanded means or attaching herself to a silver-tongued schemer like Curufin. A follower and a big mouth spinning air castles she had called him, but at least he was remembered.

Now, Galadriel was one so mighty that she could afford to pass on the title of Queen with no detriment to her position, and Tincfael a vagrant, fallen lower than she would have even if she'd simply been content with her allotted place among Tirion's gentry, risen up only by the whims of her son and what he had at the time considered undeserved charity, and now that his realm had fallen, she had lost even that.

It was clear that the daughter of Finarfin remembered her only out of vigilance, not because she'd ever been even on the edge of her perception as any sort of radar. How wise of her, how generous, to not dismiss even one who had wronged her beloved brother as a potential asset to what little degree she had useful intelligent.

But all things considered, there could be no greater indictment of the difference between them than this:

Galadriel's daughter was not currently locked in the dungeons of Sauron.

Tincfael couldn't so much as muster the energy to play at being rivals, there was no point to it now; it would have rang hollow, there was little left in this world for her to even gain. She answered all that was asked of her in a listless tone and an undercurrent of dull, muffled irritation.

Of course her one-time kinswoman wasted no time in getting to the point and did not even bother with the pretense that she hadn't recognized her outright – some, including a few survivors from Eregion, stood back surprised when she brought up Tincfael's past connections, but Elrond wasn't.

"Be honest now," spoke the princess, calculated in both the application of steel and firm gentleness, "do you think he is going to crack?"

"Why are you asking me that? _You're_ the genius mind reader."

"You are his mother."

"That doesn't mean I have his confidence. I bet he told _you_ what was in that little package he had me deliver to the High King. Now that I think back, he was in great distress when I last saw him. He must have known that this was about to happen, but he told me nothing."

"He saved you." said the Princess, probably for the sole reason that she knew reassurance would get her further than insistence her, and Tincfael hated how true it was. She hung her face between her hands.

"Look. I don't know what he might do. Maedhros never cracked, but he was fresh out of Aman then, and he was… you know, _Maedhros. _If I were you, I would assume the worst, and plan for it. I expect I need not remind you that his Majesty the High King and Lord Elrond's grandmother once had one other cousin?"

The daughter of Finarfin never once even made any unkind comment about how this must be poetic justice, considering Lady Tincfael's hand in her brother's death. She just sat there, being better, offering some reserved gestures of comfort even as Tincfael's fingers curled in on themselves in front of her face and failed quite badly at muddling her undignified sobs. "With his sword in hand, on the doors of his treasury! And everything taken… You don't understand, you weren't there – It's just like Formenos!"

Here, Galadriel could easily have made a jab at her one-time kinswoman about leaving her grandfather to die or not having her priorities straight, or what Tincfael herself was not there to see at the Helcaraxe, but the Lady of the Golden Wood had only ever withheld her mercy from one man. Tincfael however would spent the rest of time knowing that she _could_ have, and didn't.

"Back then, I took him and ran – at the King's behest. Not that his father would have cared about that, if he had asked what happened. Lucky for me that he was too far beside himself out of worry for his father. He certainly didn't care how I felt when I heard that he'd ran _towards_ that thing when he saw it coming. He got within sound of the battle before the darkness overcame him. I should have dragged them both over the Ered Luin by their ears! I should have refused to leave Eregion without him-"

"You couldn't have." was all she said – and of course, the truth of her words was beyond obvious.

**) Mordor, Barad-Dur, Pits of Lamentation**

"Where. Are. The Three?"

Even now the Dark Lord's voice was perfectly measured and calm, a meticulous instrument of torture every bit as much as the latest instruments of pain in his hands. He liked to swap them out once in a while, just to keep things fresh. It wouldn't do to have his subject get too used or too numb to his ministrations.


	10. (Appendix III, Part B)

**(Appendix III, B)**

**) 1744 years before**

Though he would have appeared unspeakably different to the subtler senses and perceptions, Sauron did not actually look all that different – in even in his black, spiked armor, even with something that resembled lava more than gold glistening on his finger, even with a wide, brazen smirk splitting open his once controlled, unassuming face.

He was simply no longer bothering to hide what he truly was, as an incarnate might chose to walk around in comfy slippers and a dressing gown in the comfort of his home, but all the best lies start from a grain of truth.

His touch was heat, his gaze was madness, his voice was terror – but it was still the same voice, as far as the mere sound was concerned – his dreadful face still retained the same features, the sight unchanged though its meaning had completely flipped, exuding fear and wrongness rather than comfort and beauty. To some extent, this was probably what he actually looked like, in the same way that Melian had been renowned as the most beautiful of her kind, some innate tendency in how he would manifest himself, a characteristic, personal imprint left on the matter beneath his command, like one's personal handwriting. He was as impeccably meticulous with his torments as he used to be with his work.

Who would have come to expect that the abomination that destroyed King Felagund really _would_ have that sort of mousy, nondescript face? No wonder Almaren had fallen. He must have slipped beneath notice until the lamps came crashing down all around them.

But of course he had, of course he did – he didn't _begin _as this incarnation of heavy boots pressed down on people's faces, nothing ever did.

Celebrimbor of all people should have known this. He knew it very well.

Sometimes, his tormentor would even speak in that same old way that he used to, as if to demonstrate how he could slip the act on and off like a glove and yet feel nothing, mocking him in that flattering, nonthreatening tone even as his fingers burned his bare, haggard flesh like a metal brand.

He could no longer say how much time had passed. It was always dark here, and the beasts never slept. It was a meager collection compared to the large and varied bestiary of the first age, but it had been enough.

The only indication that remained of the passing of nights and days was the steady withering of his much-maltreated body, the dwindling of his flesh, the strength pouring out of the tried, muscular arms he used to have.

In the end, it did not matter. He would never leave this place -

Sauron had taken the most particular pleasure in breaking the gemsmith's prized hands.

Sometimes he began to look forward to his visits – at least they brought an end to the dreadful anticipation. He made a habit of showing up _just_ as his captives were beginning to believe that the waiting was worse than the actual torture, and made sport of quickly proving them wrong.

But most of all, the distant traces of beauty that remained in his face and his voice were the only beautiful things in all this wretched hive, the only shining thing.

Even his hands mimicked the appearance of a caress as they left scorch marks on the prisoner's emaciated chest.

"Oh you poor, poor thing… Such a pathetic end for the illustrious house of Feanor. Such a _disappointment_… you know, your uncle Maedhros didn't scream _half_ as much.

You know, your father might have been a little hasty when he named you Curufinwe the Third.

But oh right. You prefer _Telperinquar_. You like to be _subtle_ when you brag about how great you are, don't you? Like that makes you sooo much better…

Then again, it's a bit of a tautology, isn't it? 'Curufinwe'. Tough act to follow, too.

You could never quite match up to the first one, now could you? And after you worked so, so hard and risked so, so much… You've wanted it so, so much, didn't you? Although you wouldn't admit it. You lot pride yourselves so much on your achievements, your ever-increasing knowledge… Namo probably thought he was doing you a favor by telling you that the best of you had already come and gone.

But hey! At least you've definitely outdone the _second_ Curufinwe. You actually _succeeded_ at taking over someone else's realm! Couldn't have done it better myself."

Burnt-out and thoroughly humiliated, the prisoner remained silent. But his tormentor would not be satisfied with that:

"Oh come on. Why do you keep resisting? What could you possibly have to gain?

Your armies have fallen. Your treasure is taken. I have left your cities in dust and returned your empire to the dirt. Look at yourself! Lord of _nothing_. All alone in this world after all your kin have departed from it. A pathetic afterglow, a pale shadow of the glory that once was, dreaming of its bygone days. The last of the Feanorians – and now you shall be the last forever.

Your time has ran out.

You will never see the sun ever again.

Never again shall you lay hand on anything that you love, never know happiness… Never shall you create again. unless you do me a little favor. Come on. Why not? After all, you've already helped me so, so much!"

He held the shining, tantalizing thing on his fingers into his prisoner's aching face. Chained to the wall as he was, the elf could not do much to recoil from the heat. So instead, he held firm where he was, bearing both insult and injury with gritted teeth. He could do little about the pained whimpers that escaped him.

"I mean it, you know. I couldn't have done this without you. You've been such a big help! Your whole family has been, with all your rebellion and your silly oaths and all the nifty little trinkets you made _just_ so they could fall into our arms. All your little infighting did more for us than any orc or werewolf, you went clamoring about how you were going to be all independent and all you did was dance on the palm of our hands! But I suppose you must understand your old grandfather a little better now, after all this. Not everyone who is working for our side _knows_ they are working for our side. And your father! Such a helpful fellow, how thoughtful of him to deliver Felagund right into our arms – and he dealt with Doriath, when none of ours could ever breach it!

And now, thanks to you and your clever hands, I shall bend all of Middle Earth to my will!

But I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

After all, we are alike, you and I. There's no place in the great, sanctimonious harmony of this world for either of us. And you must have known it. You always did, for all that you tried to hide it, to be a nice little good boy and play along, but deep inside, you know what you are.

You're one of ours. You've _always_ been one of ours, since long before you were even conceived, before your father's father was even thought of.

Poor Manwe. He didn't want to accept that his nice little plan had gone awry, so he thought he could salvage things by bringing you lot to Valinor… as if he didn't know that your ancestors were formed from the tainted earth. You ate its tainted beasts and drank its tainted waters. They should have known that there would be someone like Miriel Serinde among you… that you should bring the taint with you, and none more so than you and all your wretched house!

Do you really think that Galadriel didn't know you for what you were? She was just humoring you out of pity. Because you try so, so hard. Because it's the _wise_ and _noble_ thing to do. But in your heart, you must have known that you disgust her. She's _repulsed_ by you and your tainted, prideful nature. How could she not be? Every time she looks at you, it's like she is staring into the face of her brother's killer – she must be telling herself all the time how you can't help looking like her least favorite person in the world. That's all _anyone_ is ever going to see while looking at you. What do you owe them? What have they ever done for you? Will any of them save them now? You know you will never belong to them, so you might as well take my hand..."

This was usually the point where your average prisoner would break down. Sauron had his 'no one will ever accept you' ploys down to an art – he'd already made it work on a Finwean prince once before and reaped the blueprints of Gondolin in return, so all in all he was fairly confident that he was going to get his prize.

He did not at all expect what happened next. It's not like he did not suspect that the Lord of Eregion would prove stubborn; He had come to know him very well over these past years, but he was still not prepared to see the chained elf breaking out in mad, mirthless laughter, straight into his face.

"Is that really what you think? That we're alike?"

Celebrimbor could have cried from the absurdity. "I suppose you might think that. But I know better. The one who killed Finrod is _you. _A shadow and a remnant, left all alone, that's _you_. _You're _the pitiful remnant. The one who's trying to match up to a bygone past, the one whose works will all come to naught, is _you. Y_ou're nothing without your master, and he isn't going to come back no matter how much you dress like him. You're the one who knows that you can never match up to the previous Dark Lord. That's _you. _All this time… all this time I thought I needed you. I'll give you that. You made me an offer I couldn't refuse. But you did that because you were the one who needed me. The pitiful one is you. You can no longer make anything of your own! How futile that must feel, how meaningless..."

"Spoken boldly for a man in chains."

"Is it? What are you going to do, kill me? You'll do that anyways. You've said it yourself: I've nothing left to lose. The line of Miriel ends with me. But you know, there's more than one way to have a legacy. They still use our inventions. Grandfather's lamps, his letters… his work still shines up in the star for everyone to see. And as for mine, I shall consider myself more than satisfied if it proves to be your undoing. You say yu couldn't have done it without me – well, I couldn't have done it without you. But I've done it, though it cost me everything. I've _done it. _Not without sorrow, and only in some measure, but I did gain what I wanted… maybe not for myself, but for the world. For the high king. For Elrond. For Lady Galadriel. Now our realms shall endure long enough for you to be dealt with. I will not reap the fruits of it, but I have laid the groundwork all the same.

It will not be my hand that does it, it may not even be anyone I know. For all I know the one who will deal you the last blow will not even be born for a long, long time, but even so, when your end comes, I shall be avenged on you. I shall be avenged for Kind Felagund, and for all that you and your ilk have done to my family. Enjoy your time while it lasts, Thauron!"

"_Quit spewing nonsense, you insect!"_

Such were the Maia's words, but at least in some ways, the fallen elf lord must have guessed all too near: Thus far his ministrations had been careful and meticulous, calculated with diabolic precision to cause the most possible pain while keeping the release of death just out of reach, to damage everything but the receptacle that held the valuable information.

But he'd spent too long in that bond, too long welding the spirit that he was to this particular heap of matter – He'd gotten so used to it that his response could have passed for an instinct, an impulse that traveled along his limbs by itself before his rational thought could will it.

So absorbed was he in this momentary lapse of animal rage that he kicked his quarry once or twice more for good measure with the hard, spiky boots before he noticed his error – and once he did, he bent all his necromantic arts to hold the fleeing spirit in its leaky vessel, but it was too late, and Mandos had him.

The grandson of Feanor had escaped him at last, by the only road still open to it.

"Never mind", the dark lord told himself, arguing to his reflection in the steel that this didn't matter as a way to master the reins of his temper. He'd send for some of the orcs to skewer the blacksmith's discarded flesh – they'd get some use of it yet, possibly more use than there would have been in continuing to interrogate that insufferably stubborn elf.

It's not for nothing that the line of Miriel was known for its great obstinacy.

**) 1742 years before**

They were besieged in a narrow valley:

The troops of Gil-Galad, the survivors of Eregion, and whatever fractions of Durin's and Amdir's armies that had not managed to flee any other way.

Through the ages, the rushing river had cloven its way through the rocks, leaving a valley of manageable size with only mercifully few entrances for the defenders to clog with fortifications.

In any other circumstance it would have been accounted as a marvel, especially by beings so dedicated to beauty – it was exactly the sort of peaceful, enclosed place that would invite you to forget all about time, and even in these dire straits, its new inhabitants must have thought this a relief. No doubt that Elrond had considered this, along with many other things, when choosing this place to retreat to.

With the foe hot on their tails and a siege imminent, the disparate band of survivors had quickly coalesced around him – he was a cool head in a crisis, sober yet understanding in such a way that next to no one had a pretext to resent his orders. Though time was exceedingly short and the desperate group of diverse survivors ripe for strife or panic, he directed the fortification of the valley with care, caution and foresight.

It is likely that other comparisons prevailed in different circles, but favorable comparisons to the leadership of Gondolin were abundant among the older members of the Noldorin contingent which Tincfael largely stayed with, just another weathered refugee among many. Privately, she didn't find him nearly as thick-headed, sanctimonious or insufferable as any of his forebears, though she couldn't say which part of the family tree he might have picked this up from.

But for the most part, his resolute, judicious leadership was only relevant to her insofar as it was sure to keep her busy – with the need to erect as close as a fully functional stronghold as they could with the armies of Mordor hot in pursuit and expected to arrive any day, Tincfael's skills were in high demand, for there was no shortage of opportunities where a former apprentice of Feanor might prove highly useful, and she was greatful for each and every of them: The work kept her hands busy and her mind occupied, blissfully distracted from such a sight as she had witnessed and committed to the long and pristine memory of the Eldar.

Given the choice, she would have chosen not to look, but the scene robbed her of all wits and before she could think, the image had burned itself into her soul for all eternity.

She would of course have been aware that what she got to see was only the tip of the iceberg, merely evidence of the last leg of a much longer, torturous journey. In a way, it ought to be a relief if you thought about it rationally: Her son wasn't in there anymore when she got to see that opened, pierced lump of flesh impaled on Sauron's banners. He was finally free at long last – but it was plain to see what had preceded it. Never mind living through it – just the sight, thought and understanding of it felt like it could have soured the reminder of eternity.

She had grown him on her bloodstream, nurtured him on her breast and fed his growing soul and emergent mind with songs and stories… and there he was, decaying on a pike.

She would rather that she had never seen him again; Oh, that she had been left wondering, or with the luxury to curse herself for lacking the strength to face that sight.

"We are going to hold a prayer for him," Elrond once told her when neither of them could found anything much to occupy themselves with, addressing her from behind as she was working. She supposed that the ceremony would be thought to concern all survivors of Eregion, or at least such of them who chose to remember their ill-fated leader in a merciful light - though she could not say why the lord of this encampment should see the need to approach her in person. Formality, perhaps, or simply a result of having spent all his time far away in Gil-Galad's realm, knowing little enough of Eregion to suppose that she would have held some special honored position.

She wasn't granted it then, and she'd find no pleasure in seizing it now: "_You_ go and pray, scion of Gondolin, son of Earendil the Blessed. Your father's line was beloved of the Lord of the Waters; One of your foremothers is said to have moved Mandos himself. Maybe he'll listen to you – He has assured us that all our house would be pursued by doom to the ends of the earth, but perhaps the powers shall have pity on my son on your behalf, like it was done for King Fingon once upon a time. I dare say my son did mighty well for getting stuck with parents such as us. He was too young to understand, when we dragged him with us- "

It was indiscernible if she really believed this; She had not believed it when she made the decisions that led her to this point, and only said it now in defense of what she deemed a more important legacy.

"As for me – I know better than to expect that what I scorned of my own free will in full knowledge will be handed back to be. I saw the powers in the flesh, in their own land, and I renounced them."

The high king's herald contemplated her somberly.

"Your son's fate was the consequence of his own choices, not yours, or his father's. And your knowledge back then might not have been as full as you thought it to be."

At this, she could not hide her exasperation: "Are you mocking me?!"

To her credit, she refrained from calling him a whipper-snapper. He could regard it with distance of course, it was only very rarely these days that he got to be the younger person in any interaction beyond his few remaining relatives. He was enough of a scholar to see this as something to observe, and calmly shook his head.

"What I mean to say is that one of the enemy's greatest strengths lies his efforts to convince any of us that we have no place in the great plan, as if we were not each of us a note in the great symphony. The ones that are hard to understand may even be some of the most integral to the composition, as long as we don't forget that _all_ of us have our merit. I have found that to be one of his most insidious lies."

His words were all momentous and solemn, the sort that Tincfael had ever seen as invitation for mockery because she couldn't be bothered to think of respectable counterarguments that she already suspected did not exist.

"And let me guess – you mean to tell me that we've all fallen for them hook line and sinker..."

The 'we', as she phrased in in the original Sindarin, would not have included him. Sure, there ought to have been a teetsy bitsy bit of Finwe and of Anaire in him somewhere, but that would have constituted trace amounts at that point – His evening-dark hair was most certainly Melian's; Tincfael recalled the princess in the dungeons. An incomprehensible creature, to her: All that power and all she'd wanted was to live in peace and quiet in the woods with what for all intents and purposes a perfectly ordinary mortal, even he _did_ once land an arrow on Sauron and made a miserable, humbled heap of someone that Tincfael had once considered an overwhelmingly dazzling presence.

On that point alone, he'd be perfectly justified in looking down his nose at her; She had known of the princess in the dungeons and said nothing, nay, she had aided and abetted the whole miserable affair, and for what? Given the choice, she too might have chosen the side that had not bloodied its hands first; How fortunate for him, and Galadriel, to get that choice.

But he would prove himself unlike the daughter of Finarfin in at least one respect, and what he ended up saying turned out all the more disarming from how little she expected it:

"It has happened to many of our kinsfolk."

It was a simple, sober statement really, above all heavy as befitting the times, but the point had been made. Maybe the difference was that he didn't see foolishness as something to be mercifully endured and generously forgiven, but as something that might actually happen to him, or those he would keep close about him, despite best intentions. At the time, she had no better explanation than to chalk it up to the Mannish side of his family: "...in the end, no amount of valor or sincerity alone can be insurance against folly and misjudgment. But likewise, the faults and the downturns do not entirely erase the beautiful things, or make them unimportant. I say your son's fate was the result of his actions, but the last of them was to defend his realm to the last. I cannot imagine that whatever judgment he is to receive would not take that into account."

"Permit me one question then. When you say that the valor and intention of fools will not count for nothing, does that include Turambar? He might be considered your kinsman of sorts, couldn't he?"

It showed just slightly, but he was probably a little perplexed by the question, not understanding the turn of her question – as for the Blacksword of Nargothrond, she would have known him somewhat better, and even then, not especially well.

Yet she explained herself, now that she had already given in to let herself be seized by some strange mood:

"Guess I've been thinking back to those days a lot, now that I know what it's like to lose everything. I always thought it couldn't happen to me. Even when Nargothrond fell, or when we got chased out of Himlad, it never felt to me like the sky was falling. Because the most important thing to me was me… which is probably exactly what you were expecting to hear from the old enemies of your family, I suppose, but I assure you, I was the only one. I always chose _me_, not jewels, no great and lofty goals, nor even loyalty and honor, and here I am, still remaining, doomed to endure as all my works and deed come to nothing…

And this is how it shall be for all of us, isn't it? There aren't that many of us left, and even fewer who would linger here for long now that Eregion is deserted. We shall not make its like. There shall be no return, no songs of revival – There isn't anyone left here of the same caliber as my son. Mightier perhaps, but none with his kind of vision – I know _I_ wouldn't have it. He shall be remembered as the last of our great thinkers, the last to try something new, to be more than just a receptacle for the glorious memory of days past - "

She supposed that Elrond must have been surprised to see one of his elders realizing this just now.

Perhaps he had wisely made up his mind, accepted outright that he would one day follow after the hosts of the Vanyar from the moment he saw them depart; Perhaps he stayed behind only out of duty and foresight, some heroic devotion to the descendants of his brother and everyone else in this world he was born to or something noble like this, just as he stayed patient now, faced with a one-time enemy of his family daring to speak to him of her woes, as if she hadn't spent her early days in the cushy bliss beneath the trees, and left the joys of Valinor out of her own prideful choosing, bringing about his own chaotic upbringing in the ruins of a broken, warn-torn land, ripped from his mother's arms at a tender age and spending his formative years as a political prisoner who could not for the love of him comprehend why she'd found anything to complain with the life of a palace scribe's daughter in a land of plenty and splendor.

The prideful, truculent part of her was still tempted to counter that Elrond and his brother could not have been treated _that_ bad from what she remembered of Maedhros and Maglor – they had always put honor before reason, and the manner in which they perished did not suggest much change in that regard – but that same part knew well that she would have damn well accused him if she had been in his shoes.

Of course, he did not do that: She was still a valuable soldier, after all, even one foolhardy enough to not make for the coast the moment the roads were secured, and perhaps he was even telling himself that he ought to have sympathy for a grieving widow who had just lost both her country and her only son.

He would have been well within his rights to take it personally and ask what someone like her could really know of sorrow, or if her woes were not wholly self-wrought – He might even have called it poetic justice that the only person she ever cared about should have met the same fate to which she abandoned Finrod Felagund.

From this he refrained, but whether it was hard for him or easy she would never know, since he made the deliberate choice to keep his own thoughts and feelings under wraps to do what a leader should do. Though he was half Man and looked almost entirely Sindarin, some part of him was still so insufferably _nolofinwean. _No, worse than that, for he said exactly what he thought she needed to hear, and insightful as he was, he guessed quite near to the truth:

"This may be so, but thanks to your efforts, you _did_ retain your life. Perhaps it is time you decided what it is you wish to do with it."

**) 1741 years, eleven months and 26 days before**

He could not get her to join the prayer, and past a certain point, he did not keep trying to counterproductive degrees what he could already judge to be future.

He let her know, however, that he considered her as a kinswoman and that he had to few of those left to bother much with the old feuds in such dire straits as these – he said also that before long, everyone would understand it.

But though he left her standing guard by the river, he must then have gone to pray, for he was certainly heard.

Just a few days later, a lone rider approached the besieged outpost from the back, arriving from the shores on a shining white horse arrayed in jingling bells, so plainly visible and even eye-catching by himself as to make clear that he feared nothing of what stalked the roads.

He brought no greater force and certainly not the vanguard of Gil-Galad, but his appearance would be accounted a miracle as surely as if the Valar had deigned it fit to open up the heavens.

Tincfael herself unwittingly became witness to their power, for like many veterans of the first age, she stood gaping in awe as the shining figure approached – some, of course, went further.

There were unrestrained gasps of awe, hot tears and people falling to their knees in prayer, faces smoothed out with the serenity of ages suddenly breaking open in feeling.

The most ecstatic rejoicing came of course from the survivors of Gondolin, both those who had flocked to Eregion and the ones who had marched out under Elrond, a distant scion of their lord – but not all of them were; Tincfael found that many of her contemporaries cared precious little about the old allegiances, as if they were wisps of smoke and cloud compared to the strong, all-consuming sense of recognition in their unstained memories, and the younger elves among their number followed after their elders in this, wondering what could have them so moved.

Tincfael had of course known that the fallen returned from Mandos – that knowledge was never not there from her earliest days. But death was so rare then. She'd never known anybody who died – some great-aunt soandso maybe who was said to have had a mishap on the great journey, but that was long before her time – and then, in Beleriand, everyone who left was gone forever, at least from this side of the ocean…

At least until now.

Tincfael never exactly knew Glorfindel of Gondolin, at least not very well. He was once a loyal vassal of the house of Fingolfin, which meant that they had not really trafficked in the same social circles. She knew that he was from a brach house of the Principality of the Golden Flower, just about a few hundred years older than her, which by the standards of Valinor still made them part of roughly the same generation – as the story went, he'd caught High Prince Fingolfin's eye back when he was still a young, and was made a squire or gentleman in waiting to his son Turgon, who was then around the same age. It was easy to guess why: There had not been very many half-Vanyar living in Tirion back when the High Prince was born. In fact, he – and his older sister – were probably among the first handful, for the world was new and just about everything counted as a first. He must have wanted his children to meet and converse with others like themselves – and it was easy to see why he would have worried more about his more reserved second son than about his eldest who never had the slightest difficulty making friends anywhere he went.

In any case, Glorfindel of the Golden Flower went on to serve Turgon loyally for years without count, and even went on to introduce him to his cousin Elenwe. Thus bound to the royal house in kinship, it was not a mystery why he should follow after Turgon when he followed his father across the ice, even if he had never lost faith in the Valar; He certainly didn't have any part in the kinslaying.

Tincfael saw him last at Fingon's wedding, early into the siege of Angband, or at least she thinks so, at the time she didn't care very much to make note of him.

That was, of course, not long before Turgon disappeared with all his entourage and stayed shut up in Gondolin for longer than Tincfael herself had put up with Beleriand. Everything that came after, she had heard second hand from other sources: How Glorfindel had gone on to become one of Turgon's foremost lords, how he was greatly beloved with the populace, and of course, his renowned sacrifice, which she could only shake her head at, though she could not deny his indisputable valor even back then -

By all accounts, he had been a formidable warrior, a merry, likable fellow and a devotee of Tulkas -

But he had returned washed clean, purified and made whole, a transfigured distillation of himself, reforged anew as something tempered in a crucible, through his experiences, his sacrifice, and the grace he had received by virtue of his deeds.

He was flesh-made proof that the Valar still reigned in the west; The sentimental might even go so far as to say that he was proof that they were not forgotten.

They could've sent someone else, he said, but he'd volunteered because he had sworn to keep serving the descendants of Turgon, and he'd figured, lightly, purely, valiantly, that the ones out here would have much more need of his help.

When he walked by, it was hard to believe that his feet actually touched the ground; He had become almost alike to what she remembered the Maiar to be like, the ones that didn't slink around in the darkness beguiling hard-working inventors into their traps, a wholly surrendered instrument of fate, filled with purpose to the brim. _Now_ they came, _now_ they sent someone – and of course their messenger would be coming here now, and not to her poor, misguided son.

She'd derided and chided him for his genuine purpose; now she could only feel loathing for the ones who had taken advantage of it, and there was no place left even for envy.

He recognized her at once – Glorfindel did – he would have known only so much of what took place outside of Gondolin, heard it, maybe, but not so much felt it. He would remember her in turn as he'd last seen her before the burning of the ships and his crossing of the Helcaraxe, from the royal court. She bowed to him and his parents as a girl, staying back to let them pass first.

She'd loved how things changed once she married Curufin: Nearly everyone had to get out of _her_ way then, and both the king and crown prince showered her with favor – or what passed for favor with Feanor. But he certainly took her side in disputes; Curufin would have seen any slight to a close affiliate as reflecting upon himself, so she could certainly count on his pride if nothing else; He could do no wrong in the eyes of his father, who in turn always had the king's ear.

There was the Queen, but to an extent, Tincfael had felt safe to disregard her as long as she counted herself under Feanor's protection; It pleased him ill if any of them were too deferential to her, especially since they didn't necessarily enjoy the blanket trust he extended only to his immediate descendants.

Now Glorfindel had never been affiliated with their house nor ever recognized Feanor as king; Even the decision to follow Fingolfin would have been something he'd consider an occasion where he listened to his loyalty over his good sense. But he was well-bred and big on honor and certainly would have counted them as members of the royal house at least; It was more out of habit that he acknowledged her with the slightest little bow, a mere default courtesy he felt magnanimous enough to extend even to her: "Greetings Princess."

His voice was perfectly equanimous as he said it, none too far from his usual amicable manner; It did not even appear to require a deliberate effort. But of course he wouldn't keep a grudge: He'd probably spoken to both Finrod and Elenwe, hale and whole on the western shores, and put down past events as the products of confused dark times when the black foe still walked this world.

He would have been cleansed of the grudges and sorrows of his old life;

She was still living her first, and she wished she'd stop reminding her of all the had lost – the glory, the purity, the innocence – even the naive brash kind she had possessed.

"Shush! Don't say anything unnecessary now! People will hear. You did hear enough to know that many here have reason to begrudge me, did you? Besides, I'm nobody's princess now. A dame maybe, if the House of the Ledger's titles meant anything here; Curufin and I were finished even before his death."

"Oh. That is unfortunate. You always seemed so well matched."

That was probably the nicest thing he could say about you without speaking a lie.

"I suppose that many unlikely things that should not have been transpired in those days of heartache and uncertainty..." There was at least a little tinge of melancholia bringing the slightest crease to his brow when he thought back to the elder days.

"Though it seems now that the days of shadow are not wholly past. I heard about your son. I'm sorry for your loss."

"Well thanks!"

This is as much as she managed to restrain herself before marching off in search of wood. If it were anyone else she might have admonished them not to breathe a word to anyone of her identity, but what was the point? She was hardly in a position to threaten a messenger of the Valar.

Galadriel knew, Elrond knew, it seems inconcievable that Gil-Galad would have been left unaware, it was bound to get out before long.

**) 1741 years, eleven months and three weeks before**

What Tincfael did _not_ foresee was another unexpected visitor.

Or let us rephrase it: An expected visitor. Her presence in the rapidly solidifying makeshift stronghold was expected, but her visit to Tincfael in particulsar was certainly not.

Even so, that visitor's slender feet drew near to one of the temporary smithies that had been errected near the steeps walls of the valley, drawing near with hesitation as the one-time lady of Himlad went about her work, hammering dented armor back into shape – one could only hope that Elrond would have as much luck salvaging the poor fellows who had worn it.

The last thing one would expect in this haphazard place of grime and soot was a a slender main in fine glittering sandals and white pantaloons, topped off with a light, fluffy cloud of long silver curls akin to the crowns of flowering cherry-blossom trees in the brief triumphant moment of their flowering, if such trees made a habit of spangling their branches with ornaments glimmering like reflections of moonlight dancing in a bond, from the diadem in her hair to the chains on her arms.

With the eyes of a connoisseur, Tincfael could tell that the entire ensemble had been made as part of the same batch, perhaps by the same hand so as to fit together, perhaps extending to the pearl-studded mash that decorated part of her hair. Back in Valinor, it would have been wholly possible for a simple peasant to acquire this, if they happened to be friends with a silversmith, and even in Gondolin where the gems were plentiful, an ordinary citizen might have been able to afford this if they were prudent with their savings, but out here so far removed from the glory of old, this set was undoubtedly the mark of high status. The relative lack of scarcity and the lesser interest in the purely material by those who could outlast everything had meant that the Calaquendi had traditionally valued gems and precious metals more for their beauty and sentimental value than any notion of material wealth – these days the mortals often raised their eyebrows when they heard the tale of king Felagund bringing his jewels across the helcaraxe, and there was often a need to explain that he was not so much making his subjects haul his personal wealth so much as preserving a piece of his home for the eyes of all, including those forefathers of the Edain whose kindred had (by then) never come closer to glimpsing something of Valinor than when they beheld those artifacts -

But any artificer in Ennor would work with limited means, and hence they would save that kind of piece for the most important commissions, meaning that this girl was either their lover, or their liege – and the former seemed unlikely. Her eyes lacked the sated look of contentment of one already paired, and neither was she handling the bangles with any special sort of cherished caress – they were just clothes to her, though not of the sort that would have been that common in Gondolin or Tirion; The look was simpler, sleeker, not the gaudy baroque pieces typical of those places. The arrangement was closer to something you might have seen on the nobility of Alqualonde, or perhaps inspired by it, with just the slightest _hint_ of Noldorin influence -

Thus, without looking her in the face, Tincfael felt confident that she had determined who she was just from the make of her Jewelry.

"I was aware that Galadriel had a daughter, but judging by her and that proud Sindarin prince of hers, I would have expected to be met with a more fearsome, frightening sort of creature."

"I admit I was born long after the wonders of the early world, during gentle times of peace… I'm not surprised that I must look a child to you who has seen the light that was before the Sun and Moon..."

"Nah. We had plenty of _soft_ people in the days of old; It's just that this place ate them alive. Like your cousin Orodreth!"

"The second king of Nargothrond? I heard that he was a loremaster and a lover of the mountains, and that he ruled not too unwisely for a king who looks first to protect his people."

The silver girl was not defensive, but neither was she daunted. Her soft, gentle voice made her points with quiet resolve.

"You remind me of him a bit. And his daughter. Or maybe it's Earwen your foremother that I keep thinking of. You look _just_ like her."

"I wouldn't know. All of them were long gone before my time. They are just stories to me, sad stories told to me by my parents."

"Then have they also told you what I did with your Uncle Finrod, or what my husband did with your cousin Nimloth? I can't imagine that your father would neglect to mention that one."

That, at last, tested the girl's composure enough for her to sigh.

"Why are you _like this_?"

"Call it a kinslayer's reasoning, but I'd rather not give your mother the impression that I misled you in any way. She's much, much mightier than I, and well-beloved with her following. Did she not warn you about me?"

"_My mother_ taught me above all to be reasonable, and to never dismiss the worth of value of anything or anyone out of hand out of prior judgment. But if I have a say in it, she will have no impression about this all, for she does not know that I am here. I am a woman grown, and I came here on no one's accord but my own."

This, at last, caught Tincfael's interest enough for her to put down her tools and look at her guest.

"Oh? And why might that be?"

"Well, I am certainly not here to further old grudges about things that took place before my birth. But from what you've just said, what I have heard of you must be right..."

"And what would that be?"

"That you're Celebrimbor's mother."

"You say that as if you are acquainted." For would it not be more succinct to cut out the middleman and accuse her directly of her one-time connection with Curufin the Crafty? If accusation was at all the purpose of the glittering maiden standing in the threshold.

"Is that so strange? He was akin to me."

"Distantly."

"Not so distant as Cirdan of the havens or Oropher of Greenwood."

"Yet not so close as the High King."

"Still they were all that is left to me. I struggled to believe it at times, that I once used to have such a big family, all these aunts and uncles and the many cousins that I never met. Only a small handful of kin has remained to me, distant kin maybe, but all the more treasured…. And yet many of them live far away. Celebrimbor was the closest to us, back when we still lived in Eregion. I saw him many times. He told me many things. We did not part on the best of terms, though I could tell that he too was grieved about it..."

"Well you know how he is! Never listens to reason. It's not like he got that from _my_ side of the family..." That retort began out of old practiced habit, but took on grief and bitterness the more that she realized what she was saying.

"I thought that we might talk about him. I've been wanting to."

"To speak with _me _of all people?"

"To speak with someone who knew him, at least, and not just as a smith, or as a lord. I talked to Lord Elrond about it, and he said it might be good for the both of us. He said you might just be defiant, but I- I don't know why I even took a chance on you."

"That would be because Elrond said so, wouldn't it?"

"Oh, don't you go running your mouth about him after he gave you sanctuary. He's thinking of you and wants the best for you even after all that you and your lot did to his family! He always thinks first of what's best for everyone, no matter his own sorrow! He's every bit as a broken up about what happened with Celebrimbor as I, and still he's trying his best to comfort me, and even the likes of you! Honestly, it's about time that someone started thinking of _him_ for a change."

"He made an impression on you, didn't he?"

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing. Nothing. You know what? You're probably right. Alright. Let's talk. You can sit down if you don't mind using the firewood for a bench, I'm probably overdue for a break anyways...Let us talk about Celebrimbor… what was it again?"

"Celebrian."

"My pleasure."

They spoke many hours, recalling countless incidents up and down the history of the world. Tincfael spoke much of the early world, of her son's youth and her acquaintance with many of Celebrian's long-lost relatives – she often had to admit that she would not necessarily know any of them all that well just because she had been alive at the same time, and that they had often been at odds, but even the snippets and morsels of history that she could offer were soaked up like precious treasures. There was still very much to tell; naturally she found it more conductive to the purpose of this dialogue to focus on the nicer memories, those times before the bitter end when the strife between the princes were near asleep; The more she told, the more she managed to dig up of the bliss of Aman, of various festivals and meetings during the siege, of Aegnor and Angrod who held the nearby territories, and of the greater part of their time in Nargothrond before Beren turned up on its doorstep, of harmless, harmonious everyday occurrences that featured Orodreth, Finduilas and Finrod – Celebrian particularly loved hearing about him; He was an established favorite of hers from all the tales she'd heard from Celebrimbor and her parents. In turn, Celebrian filled her in on the later years of her son's life, when he already lived in Eregion, but before Tincfael herself had arrived there; The tales painted a fond, adoring picture of the master smith as a mature person fully come into his own power, of his once warm friendship with Celebrian's parents and how much she had once loved his visits as a girl, since he told the most interesting stories and brought the most intriguing gifts. For both of them, a wider understanding of him came together like a mosaic, and by the end of it, neither of them could really comprehend why they had not stayed in those precious blissful days. It had seemed not big thing then, to betray Finrod; Tincfael had been focussed on what they might gain if her husband's scheme succeeded. They never had a sense that they were throwing anything away – in her pride, she had even thought of Finrod's hospitality as a shameful insult, but looking back from where she was now, telling her tale to a strange girl in this soot-stained hut, she could no longer say what was so bad about being king Felagund's guest.

"I… regret now that things had to turn out the way they did-" she said, and to her surprise, she found herself meaning it to a degree. It was only half an apology, but Celebrian seemed to know better than to expect more. Instead, her thoughts were somewhere else, and there was another question bubbling to the surface of her thoughts, and the closer she came to having to confront it, the more the grip of her fingers tightened on the fabric of her white garments:

"I suppose you must have lived through many dark times such as these."

"I did, but I'm not the one you should be asking for advice here."

"My parents would just reassure me and point me to the path of wisdom."

"Well, I _ran_."

"Many others fled."

"Yes. Parents with small children, civilians who had never held a sword. It wasn't even that I was afraid for my life really. You can probably tell from your time in Eregion that cowardice is not a common vice among our people. I just didn't _care_ to fight; I saw nothing worth fighting for."

"And now? Are you planning to run once again?"

"Nah. What would be the point of that? I could hardly conquer a kingdom all by myself, and I've had it with the aimless wandering. I have some business to settle with Sauron."

"This should please both Lord Elrond and my mother. They say every sword will count."

Speaking of swords: Though the one she carried and took with her into battle was made by her son, the "better one" he'd boasted he could make, one of the few things that Tincfael had brought with her out of the wrack of Eregion had come with her all the way from Himlad in lost Beleriand under the sea.

She just didn't think to throw it away, or that's what she would say; She hadn't bothered to unwrap it before this day; But later on that same eve, long after Galadriel's daughter had gone, she would sit far up on the rocky walls of the Valley holding the ornate sheath in her hands.

"I think I'm coming to understand a little bit of your damned foolish madness," she said to its maker – and then leaned back and sighed about her own predictable patterns.

"I shouldn't have spoken to you like that, even if I was going to leave. I went out of my way to humiliate you. I needed to goad you into being cruel so I could feel justified doing the same to you. Glorfindel's right, you know, we used to be pretty well matched – We really, truly _deserved_ each other…. The pitiful part, of course, is that our son didn't…

I wish you'd been there with us, you know? When we went to see the mansions of the dwarves. Or during the work we did in Eregion. We didn't even need to up and leave – we had many, many years. We could just have gone and then went back for your ever-so precious Silmarils!"

She stopped herself right as she felt herself slip back into her old caustic ways, and made just one more observation, quietly and somberly:

"If that was all the time the three of us were going to get here, I wish we'd been better to each other..."

**) 1740 years before**

In the end it was the Numeroans that bailed them out, and with their help, the forces of Sauron were driven back for good.

But it was just as Tincfael had feared: Too many had died, and too many more took to the sea in response to the horrors they had witnessed and the hope they had lost.

Doubtless, the remaining great lords and ladies of the Eldar must have held council concerning future courses of action, and in the end it was decided that Eregion would be abandoned; Instead, the High Kind chose to place his easternmost outpost right here, in this besieged valley, where a fortification had already conveniently coalesced under the rule of Elrond his kinsman.

It was already beginning to be called 'Imladris' - and it's warriors were a disparate folk, made up of the mottled remains of many other groups that would have been at each other's throats throughout the First Age.

Tincfael Steel-Gleam was not even the strangest of its knights. There were of course objections, but they were swiftly dispelled by calls to unity and appeals to the need to leave old grudges behind.

Before her departure back to Lorien, Galadriel herself had opined that she would probably be useful. Newly humbled as she was, Tincfael didn't take it as an insult; if there was one thing she knew, it was how to make herself useful. She was often sent out on diplomatic missions to dwarvish territories or as a discrete spy to faraway lands; She was quite experienced, she had traveled far and wide in her youth back in the Blessed Realm and faced many trials in drowned Beleriand; and she could be trusted not to take any unnecessary risks, which Elrond certainly appreciated; And since he made such a point of tolerating her presence, it was pretty hard not to feel grateful toward him, or loyal even.

If her younger self could see her, she'd probably never get done laughing.

But perhaps it was Tincfael who would get the last laugh:

In the end her journeys brought her further inland than anyone else in her house. In the end she saw many curious things and witnessed many wonders, though her role in them be only small and incidental, which was not necessarily the same thing as futile. Still she was but another helping hand in the proceedings of history; her days in the ranks of its movers and shakers were over.

**) 1190 years before**

When the political situation in Numenor turned sour, few of them expected their embargo on elvish travelers from either side of the oceans to last. It was thought to be a temporary impasse that might be remedied with the next mortal king, not the exact moment of severance when they should forever be cut off from their kin beyond the sea; Certainly no one back them would have considered that the enemy should make his great comeback from the shores of Numenor.

**) 640 years before**

Even as she passed by countless seasons on her journeys, Tincfael was not wholly untouched by the passage of time. It was a slow movement for her of course, proportional to the passing of the world's lifespan as a whole, but it was precisely because she often went out from Imladris to see to various errands that she could not fail to notice the change in the wind; Whatever equipment she took with her to the outside world needed to be replaced ever faster; Tools and clothes of identical make that once would have lasted her centuries began to need replacing after mere decades; A kingdom she would have encountered on one visit would be reduced to ruins on the next.

At first she had declined the invitations to any ceremonies, services and performances in Elrond's Hall of Fire, even rolled her eyes at the suggestion.

Now, she found that she could not often resist the lure of its comforts, particularly whenever she would return from a longer journey. Usually, she would find herself a quiet corner to sit in, wrap herself in her cloak, close her eyes and take part in the endless songs of recitations of days gone by; Some here lamented the glory of old that they had never gotten to see; Others, like her, lamented all that which had been but could never be again – the more of time passed by, the more past there would be, and the more of its contents would become irretrievably lost, and the more did those who still knew of it come together to lament it.

Perhaps they would know that the end of days had come when the hours of song and lamentation had filled out all hours of the day.

**) 122 years before**

The changing of the world was felt keenly by those bound to its nature and its life. It was as if you'd taken all the small changes over the past thousands of years all rolled into one, except still surpassing that.

It was all substances of the earth answering naturally to a single bronze-voiced order from their makers' maker; It was a shock wave of concentrated time, passing through everything but herself, popping her from the picture frame of the world, leaving her ever so slightly out of sync with the substance of this changed world, an all new world, in which she was a relic of the old one.

It was right then, after uncounted years of living in it, that she first witnessed first hand proof of this world's creator. She did not have to be looking at the sea to see it; The very sky was crooked; The very earth curved away in the distance towards the horizon.

She felt it; She could not _not_ feel it.

The change was starting, nauseating; For a moment, she no longer knew up from down.

Even in a cynical mind like hers there was little room for doubt; The experience itself was self-evident; The recognition was the most natural thing in the world, seeing as she was one of His special creatures.

He was out there; He was listening -

Poor, poor Curufin. Poor Celegorm. Poor Maedhros. He probably would have released them, if they'd had faith enough to ask. But where would they take it from, after lives like theirs? Tincfael knew that just mere moments ago, she would not have counted on the creator's mercy herself.

Celebrimbor had of course told her what he heard from her sister-in-law, about how his father's demise had gone and everyone else's;

As it would seem, the late Lady of Thargelion had been proved the wisest of them all.

Tincfael had to admit some newfound respect for her in that moment, even if she had long since grown embarrassed of having resented her as she did in those last days.

Not even at the lowest dephts of her spite and bitterness had she ever hoped that her husband would succeed at cursing himself to the void – now, she felt she could take comfort in the conclusion that he was probably just in Mandos.

She'd have to count on that thought to sustain her like a morsel of lembas on the way;

Because be this a new world or the old, Sauron was still in it, and she still had unfinished business.

**) Ten years before**

After subjecting her soldiers to a strict drill, she found herself sitting at a campfire with the captain of the Numeroan Squadron that had been placed under her command.

Her mortal counterpart was a grim, weatherworn soldier with streaks of grey in her hair.

With little more than some disdant, casual interest, Tincfael asked her for her name.

"It's Zimraphel."

"-excuse me, Zimraphel?"

"My parents named me after the queen."

"I'm aware that some mortals tend to take their names from famous figures of the past, it just strikes me as a bit of a curious choice."

"Wasn't there some ancient queen of your people by that name? Though I suppose that would be 'Miriel' in your speech. She might even be an ancestor of ours, seeing as we are said to be descended from one of your ancient kings, at least the noble families that share blood with the royal house."

"Now, I've heard that your previous king was quite enamored with the old tales, so I doubt that this was any more than an honest oversight, but he really ought to have looked into this more. There was indeed a Queen Miriel in the days of yore, but she was met with an unfortunate fate, and her bloodline has long since ceased. If you were related to anyone, it would be the second Queen, the Lady Indis. Your kings would be descended from her son Fingolfin, same as ours – though I don't suppose there was much family resemblance left by the end."

"Isn't _that_ right!" the mortal woman's frustration was quite apparently. Clearly she had many thoughts and feelings on the subject. She looked just about ready to knock something over and watch it crumble in exquisite detail.

"I'm just glad that I wasn't a boy, I don't think anyone shall be naming their sons 'Pharazon' for a good while! And now they are gone! Gone to the bottom of the ocean, complete with my husband, my sisters, and all I have ever known! I he wanted the gods to smite him so badly, he could have gone on his own without needing to drag the whole rest of the kingdom with him!"

The Numeroan soldier threw another log into the fire, barely restraining her rage so that it might content itself with the sight of the dry wood going up on flames.

"I understand why it happened, though. Many of the peoples of this land might still think our punishment much too light. For much too long now has our flag brought tyranny to their shores and heralded the stealing of their children so that they might die upon the altars of the black foe. This judgement has been ages overdue…. But still. I'm still struggling to wrap my mind around how EVERY. THING. IS GONE!"

Moving away from the fire, Commander Zimraphel sat back with her arms crossed, though her posture as a whole appeared to deflate somewhat despite her still simmering rage.

"Not that you'd probably understand much about loss, being immortal and all. I imagine that our desperate ravings must be quite confusing to you."

"Confusing?" Tincfael found the very sugesstion to be laughable. "If anything, I'd find it curious that you would think so. I suppose you might think so, with your gaze so fucussed on the little strip of time that you have lived through… but would you not have studied some old texts as a follower of Elendil? Is Beleriand not buried under the waves as well? It sank with the bones of my husband; I don't even know if he ever had a grave. And my only son – the only family I had left – died in torment after the sack of Eregion. Deceived by the devices of Sauron – same as yours. Only that Sauron is proving himself to have some strange sense of humor… once, he made us believe that we should come to the east. That we should fear _your_ kind and covet the gifts you should receive – we, too, were deceived. And now he's convinced the lot of you that you ought to be raiding _Valinor_! He must be laughing at us up there in his tower..."

"...you're a _mother_."

The mortal's voice was barely more than a breath; Tincfael would never understand how she'd gone from stern seriousness to bare astonishment, but as for the Commander, she was quite overwhelmed with the stunning realization that a creature older than the moon could have anything in common with her. She'd known, or course, in theory, that the Elder Children multiplied roughly after the same manner, but she'd never supposed that they'd feel the same weight behind it.

Her once sharp eyes were much softened.

"I left my own son with my best friend, who stayed back with her own children. I'm not certain if I shall see him again, not when the enemy seems so intent on wiping us all of the map. I'm supposedly here so that my son might get to live in a world free of the shadow, but I with every mile I feel like I'm betraying him – that I'm going to die out here in the sand, never to return, and leave him all alone. Then he shall be the last of my kin, just as you are the last of yours..."

"No. He wont." The Elf spoke with a suddenness that surprised even her. Zimraphel, though hardened in many battles, certainly couldn't help the twince of fear when Tincfael turned her shining eyes on her and gripped her by the shoulders.

"You have to go back for him. In _this_ world. Who know how long you'll need to find him in the next! You have to make it back to him. I will do what I can to ensure it."

**) Three days before**

Tincfael had not expected to wake up in truth, much less where she could hear and smell the scenery of a living, sun-drenched garden;

The last she recalled was the sun-drenched waste of Mordor;

But she could have recognized her current surroundings even if she had never known the walls; She had much time to grow familiar with the voices of the birds and the symphonic scents of the trees, even that subtle buzz of song and force rustling around at the edge of even her perception.

"Excuse me, but… what on Arda just happened…?!"

"You're awake."

It was, however, a bit surprising that Lord Elrond would have chosen to tend to her in person – or maybe not so surprising at all, if she could recall nothing of the entire return trip. She hadn't thought that her injuries had been that severe, but the last she recalled was this inexplicable sense of cold…

"Try not to think about it," he said, as if he'd glimpsed something of what was going on in her mind, be it from her face or some subtler perception, "the experience of it is little less venomous than the poison itself."

"So it _was_ that Nazgul, wasn't it? I just _knew_ there was something shady about its weapon…. And you know the best part? I'm pretty certain that I was the one who made that particular ring."

"It's a possibility."

"No, it's more than that; Believe me, I can tell."

It was then that it occurred to her to sit up, but at that point it was a motion of habit in mid-conversation and not prudently considered. She managed to roll onto her site and prop herself up by her elbow, but the moment she put ought of her weight on it, she came to regret it; Her other hand flew to her chest and shoulder, which were mercifully bandaged, but even then there was the clear implication that she'd been hastily cut out of her clothing, and likely the armor as well.

Through gritted teeth, she asked to know about the battle.

"You were very fortunate that I was able to see you within the hour."

It was only now that she was able to get a good look at him; She wasn't sure how far his mortal blood would add to it but though he maintained a stoic, somber expression, he looked exceedingly drained and exhausted, as if he had labored on a great very many patients today, not all of which had gone the way that he wanted. "I take it not everyone was so fortunate?"

"...Elendil has been slain, as was one of his sons – and I fear that I failed to preserve the other from a great folly. And we have lost the High King. He died facing the enemy himself; It was because of his sacrifice that we had any chance to strike at him."

"Then you mean-"

"He is gone. For now, at least."

Tincfael required a moment to process all that. Squinting hard, she got herself into a sitting position which allowed her to take all the weight off her injured shoulder, allowing her to rest somewhat free of pain; Only when she had caught her breath did she venture an observation:

"Alas for the noble house of Fingolfin! His forefathers must all be very proud of him."

In her heart she could not help but feel a distinct sting of bitterness at how Gil-Galad had still managed to outlive her unfortunate son by more than half an age.

"Am I speaking to the next high king of the Noldor then? Or has Galadriel made a claim?"

"Over what? There would hardly be a point. Too many have been lost or gone over the sea. Let Gil-Galad be remembered as the last.

Speaking of which: I have sealed your wound for the time being, but to cleanse it entirely is beyond even my power. To remove it wholly might require a visit to the fountains of Este. I do not know how long it will hold – you might have decades. Perhaps even longer, since you were nurtured beneath the ancient light that was. But if you took a sudden turn for the worse far from here and came to Mandos, you would undoubtedly be bidden to stay a long time given the history of your deeds, and it would be long indeed before you should see your son again. If you wish him to believe in your repentance, you could begin by making him a priority – to be frank, I suggest strongly that you should sail."

"So it's come to that already, eh?"

She always thought that this conclusion would feel like utmost humiliation – but in the end, it was almost a relief, like being relieved at the end of a long night's watch.

"Alright milord. I shall once again take your advice. Grant me just one thing. Let me behold my son's work one last time."

That _did_ give him pause – it had been very, very long since she'd seen him caught off guard.

"Oh don't look at me like that. It was not too hard to work out, seeing as I was the one to deliver it. Your secret is safe with me; and it's right about to follow me across the sea. All I ask is one glimpse."

**) Three days and half an hour before**

"By the way..." she asked in passing, when she was finished dressing herself and was just about ready to step out of the room. "What about that Numeroan woman… the one who fought beside me?"

"She lives. In fact, she had settled not too far from here with her child. I understand that you saved her life during the strife?"

"If she says so… just have my leftover things sent to her, alright? The ones that won't fit on the boat – my swords included. I don't suppose that I'll have much need of them where I'm going. Let her make a family heirloom of them or something… And one more thing. Two things. Thank you, and good luck – I have a feeling you're going to need it."

**) Several Days after**

At last, she was borne by the waves far above the strange crooked paths of this world, up to the golden land of her birth, or whatever might have become of it, hanging up there in the sky like some frozen mirage;

In the end, her son was too eager for news of the world below to bother with any old grudges, and glad enough to see her that he went back on his word, for all that he was perhaps less adamant about it to begin with than some of his kin: Despite his one-time protestations to the contrary, he did not hesitate to have her elevated to the rank of Queen Mother; And conversely, despite all the folly of her younger days, it did not even occur to her to complain that she wasn't called 'high' queen instead.

It was just as well; The steadiness and peace of their later days would have been wasted on the rash, begrudging lady who set out here long ago.


	11. Epilogue

My only one /

My smoking gun /

My eclipsed sun /

This has broken me down /

My twisted knife /

My sleepless night /

My winless fight /

This has frozen my ground

My best laid plan /

Your sleight of hand /

My barren land /

I am ash from your fire /

Stood on the cliffside /

Screaming "Give me a reason"/

Your faithless love's the only hoax /

I believe in /

Don't want no other shade of blue /

But you /

No other sadness in the world would do

**Epilogue**

**0.**

The underlying notion to this tale was: To understand the ending, we must understand the beginning;

Corollary: To understand the end, we must understand the beginning. The place where the loop shall attach to when it finally closes.

The thread of fate was too massive not to send waves back into the past; No one in the perimeter of Formenos would have felt quite at ease when the fateful day came.

There were guards posted on the walls long before there were thieves in Valinor; But even when the thieves finally came, the guards availed nothing.

Lady Arqueniel – not yet Tincfael – had not yet learned through the reality of conflict to place pragmatism over reckless vanity; They looked to her to be one and the same. This was when she still preferred to carry a weapon out of vanity, and it was vanity that led her to captain the guard of the silver hours by herself, in an ornate cuirass designed more for bragging rights than protection – though she much liked the ideas of independence and rebellion, she had privately suspected that the watch was not strictly necessary for the moment with the chiefest of their enemies far away in Tirion; She had volunteered to lead it nonetheless, both to spite their rivals and the Valar, and to display her loyalty in hopes of further reward; She had ceremoniously saluted the High Prince when he left, and proudly spoken some customary words about guarding the vault with her life.

When given the excuse, she would end up striking with precious little provocation, but as it stood, she did not know what to expect of a real fight… and she had lived beneath the light all the days of her life, until that day of doom when she came to be aware of the distant golden shimmer glowing ever so slightly dimmer, withdrawing ever so subtly from the southwestern half of the sky.

At first, she thought that it was only ever her imagination, a question of growing accustomed to the high north, though she had shared the princes' exile for many years now.

She was not the first to pause and observe the golden patch of sky with squinted, narrow eyes, but she might have been one of the first to actually say it: "Oh my stars, _the light is going o__ut__!_"

There had been much posturing back in Tirion, much tough-talk and sable-rattling, and she had ever been first in line – but she had spat her scorn at something tangible, like Nolofinwe and his supporters, not some ominous diffuse darkness.

In that moment, neither she nor her guard of like-minded ruffians could make good on any of their cocky words – it was one of the older guardsmen, a veteran of the great journey, who was the first to gather them all together and suggest that someone really ought to fetch the king.

As their de-factor superior and the law-daughter of their sworn leader, that task fell to Arqueniel, but when she ran down the stairs from the lookout posts on the walls, she was merely doing as she was told, and her first thought was not for the king, but to know where her son was.

How convenient then that they were both found in the same place, already gathered in the great hall with many of the knights and the rest of the royal house, not that there were many of them remaining in these walls: The High Prince had gone, his sons had gone, and thus the inhabitants of Formenos were left with old king, the scarcely grown young prince Telperinquar, and the princesses, the chiefest of which had been the daughter of a mere bookstore owner and as such unprepared for leadership – not that her more blue-blooded counterpart from the House of Topazes appeared much more composed.

Though present in the hall, Princess Almariel (not yet Marilwende) looked to have reached her breaking point in all her finery, panicked enough that she was holding on to Luthina, who in turn was trying her best to support and comfort her, so as to keep control of at least one aspect of this unprecedented situation.

Under any other circumstance, Arqueniel would have considered this her time to shine; But looking back, she would see the memory of herself stumbling in disgracefully, stammering fiercely about the darkness and then making a dash forward to seize her son into her arms as soon as her task was technically fulfilled.

Telperinquar himself was, even then, made of the same marvelous stuff as his father and grandfather and stood resolute where he was in serious conversation with the king, acknowledging his mother only by a private shifting of his arm, though his grip on her hand was by no means light.

For the most part, it was chiefly the older warriors who had kept their heads; many of those who had still known the lands in the east and sympathized with their cause for that very reason.

The thick walls and splendorous adornments glimmered ominously in the fading light which had already failed to the point that the blue fire of the artificial lights had nearly become the room's chief illumination, shining on the room and its occupants in unfamiliar angles; Once, the copious illumination was thought an unnecessary flourish born of capricious vanity; Now, it was the only reason that any of them could see as far as their own hands; And still many of them could barely see the room, trapped under the dark that was more than dark and facing absolute uncertainty; Many were aware that the world they had known all their long, ageless lives was about to be swallowed up by infinite darkness.

Of the ones who had made it to the halls, Princess Almariel was probably the most hysterical; She kept and kept repeating the same senseless words with the same desperate urgency. Despite her best efforts, Luthina could not calm her, and her unfocused ramblings did absolutely nothing to set anyone at ease. Arqueniel, for her part, really wished she'd just stop.

"You don't understand! They're coming _here_! _She_'s coming here, and _he'_s coming here, and they're coming right for us!"

"I'm sure all will be fine," was all Luthina could respond, less because she believed it, but more for the sake of having a reply at all: "Carnistir and the others must be here any moment, right, sire?"

The king regarded them gravelly, looking first to them, and then to Arqueniel and Telperinquar, who were still standing right before her. It took her much of an effort not to tremble, but at last she tried her best to force out the words, trying to channel the nervous energy behind her trepidation into bluster: "We are awaiting your orders! Shall I ready the guard?"

In the end, all the effort she expended to feign bravado went to waste; For of course the old king would see right through it, and put a hand on her shoulder in a paternal fashion, reserving the other for her son. "Don't be ashamed of your wish to go on living in safety; I lead your forebears here in the hope that you would never need to know such fear; Alas, our wishes do not always come true."

He then cast a glance at Almariel, probably well aware of the seers in her family seeing as he would have worked with them in the assembly of the lords, and certainly aware of what a rough vision would look like in an untrained individual, seeing as he had raised several children with much greater gifts than hers.

"And you're certain that whatever is coming is truly moving toward Formenos? It's not just our general direction?"

Almariel frantically shook her head. "They're coming _here._"

The king appeared to have suspected this already.

"What of Carnistir and the others?"

"They won't get here in time!"

"Wait. What are you saying?" Arqueniel interjected. "Why in the world would they come _towards_ us if they can see that coming?"

That was not a question that the king needed an answer for; His concern was elsewhere:

"And the festival-"

"Don't make me look any further! I can't- I don't want to see any more. I can feel them coming. All their malice… calling for us… if they notice me-"

"Oh, keep it together! Just tell us! What do you see!"

But the king still had enough of his wits about him to realize that Almariel must have met her limit; She had no training to begin with, if she had seen anything at all, it would be because of the overwhelming weight of the doom that was drawing its noose tighter and tighter around their necks, it's crushing weight looming so close above their weight that just about all of them must have sensed in their own way. He'd been suspecting something like this ever since the Dark Vala's unannounced visit, and gestured for Arqueniel to quiet down:

"It's enough." he said to her, and then turned to the distraught princess:

"I understand. You've done all you can. Please, don't strain yourself any further. Lusina. Why don't you get Almariel something to drink? She must be exhausted."

Grateful to be able to do anything helpful at all, the wife of Maglor complied swiftly and quietly. If there was any thought she wished to voice, she couldn't bring herself to voice it; She led her law-sister out of the room, unaware that this was the last she would hear from the king.

He, however, seemed to have come to a realization in this instant, one that was not wholly without its relief.

He exhaled deeply.

"I'm just glad that Feanaro and the boys are not here. I know some of you might not like to hear me say that, but thank the Valar for that! Praise be unto Manwe to whom all birds are dear!"

At last, the king turned back to the third princess and her son.

"Sire-"

"Lady Arqueniel Nornien from the house of the Ledger. I am placing all my trust in you. I know my son esteems you greatly, so I will trust his judgment in this, and appoint you to lead the people in my stead. Take your son with you, and get ready to evacuate the fortress."

Never once before the darkening would she have thought that she would quibble if she were bestowed with such a honor; Now, her hands were tightly gripping the fabric of her only son's robes.  
"But- sire, if they're after what's in our vault, they'll-"

"Yes. Which is why you ought to leave them here. Of course, I don't mean to leave my son's cherished masterpieces unprotected; I shall stay behind to guard the vault; I will endeavor as best as I can to buy you time. I trust that you know of some nearby crevice from your wanderings with my grandsons?"

"Yes but-"

She was painfully aware of the sudden sense of relief that flooded the bubbling emotional stew in her ribcage; Perhaps her later reckless acts in Alqualonde would be her way of convincing herself that it was never there.

But for now, all she could feel was immense gratitude; The most she'd ever felt in the centuries of her life.

"I- Thank you, sire… Telperinquar, let us go."

"No. I'm staying!"

It was then that the young man extricated himself from his mother's grip; To begin with, he had not quite clung to her the way a small child might; No one could have been wholly undaunted in such a moment, but he had been waiting not for salvation or relief, but for a course of action.

"I'm going with you! I am a prince of the Noldor, and I am not going to run. Before he left, father told me to take care of things here, and I mean to keep my word!"

"Telperinquar. Be serious!"

"I am being serious. Don't worry mother, just gather everyone together and get ready to leave-"

"As if you even know what you're saying!"

Arqueniel would later conclude that she would have wasted much time continuing the fruitless argument, but even then she was exceedingly glad when she saw the king taking the matter into his own hands, grasping the eager boy's own and looking him straight in the eyes.

He was a sensible man and a convincing speaker, and it was clear from his serious manner that he had not intention to take some half-grown boy along to his doom.

But he knew full well what his choice would entail and took the chance to take a nice, long look at his descendant; The boy's features were already beginning to lose the softness of youth and the king knew better than to dismiss the fierce determination in his eyes as mere youthful folly.

So, he tried to choose his words well:

"Your father said that so you would be aware of your duties, and so that you would not feel helpless or unimportant, and I'm glad to see that he was successful in that; But your duties would best be served if you helped your mother with ensuring the safety of our people and watched over them in my stead until your father and your uncles return."

Telperinquar was a reasonable boy and he certainly understood the reasoning here, especially when it was laid our before him with a certain implied trust, but still he did not feel free to make that decision in good conscience:  
"But I promised. And father says that one must always keep word. Even grandfather says that. All the time."

The king sighed deeply. No doubt he must have felt like he was being made to face the comeuppance for his every misstep in these last hours.

"I'm not surprised that he says that. That is probably because _I _broke my wedding vows long ago. Twice now, I suppose. There are more ways than one to be disloyal. It's not that I didn't _want_ to keep them, or that I did not mean them at the time. But things happen that you cannot change or foresee. Sometimes you _can't_ keep your promises, no matter how much you meant them at the time. _Please_ understand that. If you remember only one thing about me, remember this."

"Why wouldn't I remember you? We come to see you all the time."

That is when the royal composure finally cracked; As Finwe did not wish for his young descendant to see his tears, he moved quickly to take him into his arms.

"You're so much like your father. And your grandfather. And then in some ways, you are so very, very much your own person. I'm sure you'll go on to do great things... So please, do me a favor and guide everyone from this place."

Telperinquar was a bright youth; By now, he could surely have not missed the gravity of the situation.

"I-"

"It's alright. You don't have to promise."

It was then that someone arrived with the king's sword and armor.

After he stood up to receive him, he exchanged one last nod of acknowledgment with the Lady Arqueniel; She was honestly rather grateful to him, and her later enthusiasm about all the talk of revenge would be more than just lip-service; But at the time, none of that kept her from being very eager to be gone.

Experienced as he was, he did not even need to raise his voice to command the entire room's attention; If anyone noticed the droplets glittering at the corners of his eyes, they kept it to themselves out of respect.

"I ask that you all go with the lady and young Telperinquar."

She did not need to be told twice; and immediately began pointing around the room with her finger, barking out orders to ensure a departure in an orderly fashion; She also made sure to keep a close eye on her son, but he would not have needed the further supervision, having solemnly accepted the king's request, offering to offer his mothers with small errands here and there, though she was reluctant to let him out of her sight for too long, and big him only to fetch Luthina and Almariel, and to return immediately in their company.

He brought them as requested; By then, Luthina had managed to calm down Almariel and they were now quite resolute in refusing to be worried over and doing their part in organizing the departure.

Arqueniel proceeded to order the around as well.

The departure thus became a swift, orderly and pragmatic affair; She was by no means glad to leave all the treasure to Melkor, but she ensured that they would grab all the necessary gear that wound up enabling their further travels.

It was hard to tell what the king was thinking; Perhaps he had notions of settling old scores, little as he could hope to succeed. Maybe he wished that he could have seen his other children again, but he must have been aware that his presence here was the result of his choices; For all the misfortune he'd faced, he could not say that he not also been shown great favor.

He thought it better if they did not tell him where they would be hiding.

**I.**

It was not until well into the next age until halls were rebuilt complete with the once superfluous lights; they proved surprisingly neat to have in a world that experienced regular night-time.

By then it was commonly recommended that curious visitors ought to see the renewed walls at night, though many of those who had lived through the years of the trees preferred to approach the site only in daylight, as if the night were too much of a reminder even with the silvery gleam of Isil to light the way.

There was one such pair of visitors towards the early years of the third age, though they might have had a rather different reason for avoiding the night.

It was a rather disparate pair that approached the same walls that Melkor himself had once rent asunder; both wrapped in hooded cloaks, but cutting rather different silhouettes all the more, for one of the travelers was arrayed in all white from the tip of her cloak to the wintry dress she wore beneath all down to her all-white riding boots, a long-limbed woman of tall, strong built and very fair skin, all in white save for the tufts of dark hair spilling out of her hood; by contrast, her companion was somewhat shorter, dressed in simple work clothes, and all in black save for whatever strips of his pale face were left visible by his hood, and he had cause to hide it well. What little could be seen suggested a young face, though whether it was one that had not yet had the chance to grow old, or one that was interrupted at some early stage, it was hard to say.

The woman spoke for them when they got to the gates; The young man followed her like a nebulous shadow. Her sudden, unannounced arrival prompted questions of course, but whatever she told the guards persuaded her quite quickly to let her pass. One took a startled step backwards when he caught a glimpse of her face, whispering to his fellows;

One way or another, it just so happened that she was not disturbed at any point of her passage through the complex, along with the silent companion who always followed close by.

It helped that she walked with firm, eager steps and a clear sense of purpose, doubting little that she was supposed to be there and very certain as to what she was looking for.

She paused only when she came to the monument in the courtyard, taking a quick moment to clap her hands together and briefly pay her respect, though her companion could only observe.

Mindful of his presence, she did not linger overmuch and encourage him to follow her further inside, until they neared the hall where the king and his knights had once held their last counsel.

Of course, neither of the two would have seen this place in those days;

She would not have been allowed, though she did not stride upon the mosaic tiles with any sort of triumph or old resentment, hardly more than the odd moment of ages-old curiosity finally sated. Her companion, in turn, had not yet been born, though he was aware that the events here must have influenced his life more than he could be aware.

If things had been otherwise, he might not even have come to be at all, and he was well aware that many would count that a blessing.

They walked hand in hand when they finally reached the jeweled thrones, bearing upon them a quite different set of people than they had at their inception. Since she never came her back in the day, the lady in white could only speculate which seat had been Maitimo's and which one was Finwe's – but she was pretty sure, just from taking one look at it, that Telperinquar was currently sitting on the one that Feanaro must have chosen for himself.

Last time she had seen him, he was a rather sweet young man; Now, he was most definitely mature, somewhat imposing to look at, and doing a rather good job at filling that chair, flanked to the right by his aunt and at his left, by his mother.

The newly arrived traveler had of course got to know them quite well through her friendship with their husbands, but they were greatly changed now in ways both obvious and subtle, and in some ways, not at all.

Middle-Earth seemed to have cured Arqueniel of the greater part of her vanity; She lounged quite casually in her chair, wearing simple work-clothes, as if she'd only just been interrupted, or had decided to invite herself to this audience as soon as she had heard of them. Almariel – or Marilwende, as she now called herself – sat there in great finery and a hair-net studded with jewels, looking quite pleased to see her, much like she would have in the past, but it was hard to picture her old self as being the first to speak: "Irisse! You're back from Mandos! I've been wondering when you would come! Your brothers didn't seem worried so I figured that you'd told them what you were up to, but it was a bit confusing that you were taking so long. I hadn't heard that you'd done anything particularly bad, so..."

"I couldn't leave without _him._" declared the lady in white, patting her taciturn companion on the shoulder. "Or I suppose, I could have, but I didn't want to."

"You mean, that is..." Even Arqueniel preferred to leave that unsaid, but it was clear that all tree grasped what was implied.

"I was hoping to introduce you back in Himlad, but I decided to hurry up and cross the border… but you remember me telling you about your cousin Telperinquar, do you?"

"It's alright, Aunt Irisse...we are acquainted."

"That's one way to put it." snapped Arqueniel. "No offense, Irisse, but I'm pretty sure that this brat of yours burned down a city _with my son still in it_."

"Well then maybe he shouldn't have taken the chief artificer post after I'd spent _years_ working toward it!"

"Excuse me?! You were what, 150? I was simply more experienced at the time. Next you'd be expecting Turukano to make you guildmaster instead of Rog."

"What I expect is that I wouldn't have spent all day digging up those bloody diamonds only for you to show up out of nowhere and become everybody's darling when you started making them from scratch!"

"I was nobody's darling. Come on! Unlike you, Turukano didn't trust me as far as he could throw me. You know full well that I only got the post because Itarille vouched for me!"

"And what's up with _that_, anyways? You were awfully friendly with her for my liking!"

"_Please!_ We've known each other since we were children!"

"Will you cut it out! Lomion! Tyelpe! No arguing. Didn't we talk about this? You're worse than father and uncle Feanaro!"

Since Irisse was one of the very few people who were universally beloved by every side in this family, her exclamation actually succeeded in calming down the discord.

Her son seemed to have only shut his mouth for the love of her, but Telperinquar was feeling more tempted to run his palm through his face than he had for many thousand of years.

At last, it was Marilwende who again took it upon herself to get the awkward part out of the way: "So… are you just dropping by to say hello, or is there a particular reason for your visit?"

"I would also like to know this." said Arqueniel.

"Well, I've been speaking to Lord Namo about Lomion's release, and one of the conditions for him to get out within the millennium was that has to keep his distance from Itarille. Which means that he's not allowed in Tirion. And I don't think he'd be too welcome in Eressea, either. So I was hoping that you might be able to help us find him a place to stay."

Having sat back down, the lord of Formenos regarded the sable-clad figure down below. He seemed very much unchanged from their time in Gondolin, so much so that he almost felt himself shifted back into those days just from the sight.

It was not just that he physically looked the same – that much would have been a given for any of the Eldar – but in his posture and body language, which still very much suggested a malcontent youth; One might suppose that he had not had the chance to live more, to gain more experience instead of merely ruminating on processing the old; A boy interrupted, still green, except that there had still somehow been the time for his sorrow to grow ancient and for his deeds to go down in infamy.

Itarille had warned him straight away to stay away, but that had not discouraged Telperinquar as he was then. "So he has got to be a scoundrel, just 'cause his father's a scoundrel?" That was something he was not inclined to believe then, even if it was for somewhat self-serving reasons; And he'd even thought that he might have found a kindred spirit and made some attempt to befriend the severe, taciturn miner, hoping that they might defy their forefathers' destinies and have a merry time spilling all of their fathers' prized trade secrets to spite their memory; and whatever might have been the matter with his father, Telperinquar couldn't help but be at least a little jealous of one who who would be descended from such a noble, heroic lineage as Nolofinwe's.

But Maeglin of the House of the Mole had never throw away the strange sword he'd brought with him, and certainly didn't allow any stranger to examine it closely, nor would he think of disclosing how its substance was fashioned, and he saw little more than a rival in the overeager newcomer who fled to the city after the great battle and did not show any sign that he was the slightest bit bothered by the prospect that he might never be allowed to leave.

When Maeglin had put down his industrious labor to go on an uncharacteristic spree of drinking and merrymaking that seemed at odds with his usually spartan and severe work ethic, Telperinquar had found himself mildly concerned and voiced that thought to Itarille; When she asked him to make a child-sized coat of mail for her son every single year and instructed him sternly to keep quiet about it, he'd complied; But he did not suspect Maeglin in the slightest and was absolutely blindsided by his betrayal – and it wouldn't be the last time.

Even so, that all had taken place long, long ago – he was a much different person now, compared to then, or even compared with his time in Eregion.

He would now be quite capable of viewing the whole matter from a much more detached point of view. He would no longer see it as reflecting on himself if some son of a scoundrel turned out to be a scoundrel as well, but at the same time, he'd come to learn a thing or two about temptation and suffering, and was able to regard the tragedies of Beleriand from something of a distance after he had been reunited with many of the ones involved on this side of the veil.

And in any case, he never had any quarrel with Irisse herself, whom he had always been fond of; If anything, he should be looking to resolve this for _her_ sake.

Thus, he pondered the matter thoughtfully, tenting his fingers as he considered it, and adressed his next question chiefly to her: "The name he used back in Gondolin was 'Maeglin', wasn't it? That sounds Sindarin. Is he a Sinda?"

"Well not exactly. Probably a little bit, since his father claimed that he's related to their king somehow – he didn't really talk much about his past. But the Sindarin King _did_ grant him some land, so it's probably true that he had _some_ sort of Telerin ancestor somewhere down the line. But for the most part he seems to have been one of the Tatyar – of the ones that grandfather never convinced. He was even a metalworker! I think he came to Doriath before the sun and moon, but it seems like he didn't really like it there, so he left..."

"A troublemaker then." reasoned Arqueniel. "_Serial_ troublemaker, if you suppose there's a reason why even the other Avari refused to put up with him. Or who knows, maybe he just got wind that his cousin in the west rules a bountiful realm with a well-stocked treasury. Probably a scoundrel."

"I'd call him a free spirit. That's what we had in common, at least before our falling out..." she trailed off there, showing some cracks in what so far had resembled her usual demeanor – it was clear that there was much more there that she wasn't saying; But even Arqueniel had enough decency not to go poking around in that wound; So she adressed her next comment purely to her son: "Well if you want my opinion, that still sounds like a scoundrel to me. Takes one to know one. I've told you once before. And over there is scoundrel junior. Don't tell me that he didn't suddenly lose all interest in fleeing to Himlad once you mentioned that your brother is stinking rich with just one single girl for an heir, while Celegorm had just a spartan wartime outpost and the whole lot of us right there with him! Or maybe he'd guessed from your stories that the pair of us would be to shrewd to outwit."

Maeglin said nothing;

His mother forced herself to give up a few terse, heavy words about that which she did not feel like sharing: "We thought we'd be safe in Gondolin; Or at least, that we wouldn't be followed."

"That was then. Water under the bridge; Land under the sea. But I hope that you're not expecting us to believe that he's all changed just because the Valar turned him loose. Us, of all people. They've been known to miscalculate before, as you no doubt remember."

There was a bit of awkward silence which Marilwende then hastened to diffuse: "Perhaps we might find some band of Tatyarin Avari to put him with? There is a good number of those in Valinor these days." Arqueniel, for her part, found that thought amusing: "I'd wager some of them would be willing to take him in just to spite us."

That is when silent youth finally revealed himself, stepping forward in a swift, abrupt motion, lifting up his bowed head so that his dark hood and raven hair fell away far enough to reveal his eyes, and at last, he spoke, his voice still youthful in coloration, but oozing with old, hard disdain: "Out of the question! I'd rather die all over again."

Ironically, he looked quite a bit like his mother, despite his somewhat slighter build. Usually hidden behind his mop of ebon hair, he had her family's fine features, and, it would seem, perhaps some ghost of its famed valor, for he looked straight into Telperinquar's blazing gaze without flinching away in the slightest. He could not say that he wasn't intrigued.

"Might I ask why?"

"He wants to live with our people-" Irisse interjected, perhaps to soften the blow she knew was coming, but her son was for once in the mood to make himself very clear:

"Because the jerk that begat me would rather put a spear through the both of us than allow it, and I don't feel like giving him the satisfaction of doing as he likes."

"In any case, except from what he's got from Grandma Indis and possibly some cousin of King Thingol's, he's very nearly full-blooded, so I thought I'd come to you. Besides, I spoke to your father and Tyelkormo in the halls, and they said I could try bringing him here. There are many here who already have a somewhat… unusual reputations, so, he wouldn't stand out as much… and it's not like he wouldn't earn his keep. He's a pretty good metallurgist – he'd fit right in with all the craftsmen. Besides, he always wanted to study new techniques to improve his skills – that's part of the reason why we made for Gondolin. And he could do this here. So would you please consider it? Your father already said yes-"

"Then he must be out of his mind!"

"Mother, enough." Rising up himself, he gestured for her to sit down, which she complied with, reluctantly, throwing herself back into her chair without doing much to hide her displeasure.

Then, he began descending from the dais, addressing the petitioners below. "Aunt Irisse. The current head of our house is _me, _not my father. The Decision is mine, unless uncle Makalaure were to appear from beyond the sea."

"I know that, and believe me, so does your father. I just thought we would ask you, because you're the child of an old friend."

"It's not you that mother is concerned about."

He drew a deep, tired breath once he'd reached the bottom of the stairs, looking right path her at her somewhat petulant second shadow. "You. Take that thing off of your head. And look at me."

When he showed no inclination to comply, his mother deemed it wise to try some encouragement that was certainly firm but by no means hard or cold: "Do it, Lomion."

With clear reluctance and some moments of hesitation interspersed at many steps of the way, the infamous traitor of Gondolin gripped the edge of his hood with his large, long, pale hands and pulled down to reveal his messy nest of pitch black hair, as well as a proper look at his face.

Who could say if he'd ever put any stock in his mother's suggestion, but be that as it may, he seemed determined to at the very least go down with dignity, and not be unduly daunted by a man who, at this point, didn't have _that _many years on him in terms of mere existence.

There was almost something about this that one could respect, even when faced with the worst scoundrel ever produced by any civilization of the Elder Children.

Even after finding himself in a place he had only known from legend, he didn't stand his ground half bad.

Not like the three of them were on the most solid of grounds to be appraising someone as if presented on a platter. It's not as if he didn't know what that felt like, even if the expectation of it probably outstripped the reality.

So at last, Telperinquar was the first to break the staring contest.

"Sauron got you, didn't he?"

Maeglin, of course, made no answer, but there was no need of that anymore; It was probably his means of breaking even when winning was not an option.

"You are fortunate enough to be speaking to someone who actually understands what that means."

Sensing already where this was going, Arqueniel insisted on protesting: "I don't remember you cracking."

"Not entirely. But I was deceived, and I did reveal where the lesser rings were – sure, I rationalized that this would distract him from the greater ones, I told myself that he would probably find them and use them anyways since he had a part in their making, that he would have found them anyway – but maybe not. Those I considered allies did come to harm, and who knows how many innocents that I never knew might still be involved in wiping up that mess. I'm not sure I could say why I resisted – or that I can't understand why one would give in. We shall put you to work posthaste, and if anyone should have… objections, they can take it up with me. "

"Alright. Alright! It's your fortress! But I hope our dear kinsman realizes that I will be watching his dealings very, very closely, and that I'm not quite as magnanimous as you."

Irisse chose to hear only the first few words: "Oh, thank you! Thank you so much! You don't know how much this means to us! Oh I knew I could always count on you!"

"Don't thank us yet," mumbled Arqueniel, but she could not come across all that convincing if Marilwende had already gathered up her skirts to come hastening down the stairs, likely intending to show their distant relative around the fortress and the adjacent settlements.

"Oh, just so you know, Turukano might come to visit – not right now, possibly not for a couple of decades, but when he's ready..."

Arqueniel tried her best to stifle a laugh. "Your brother Turukano. Here in Formenos! Now I've heard it all!"

"That won't be a problem, will it?"

Marilwende and Telperinquar exchanged a few questioning looks. "I assure you that it won't be. I have no interest in reviving any old feuds."

Overruled by far, even Arqueniel but not help but acquiesce and begin tho accept that they were now apparently about to leave the great hall to go through assorted pleasantries. "Fine. But make sure to rein him in!"

Later perhaps they would find the time to discreetly petition Irisse for news of their husbands.

**II.**

At the end of the Third Age, last of the original exiles were finally expected to come home, and back on the western shores, Lusina had no small amount of curiosity about the stories they might have to tell, for the crooked world down below seemed ever stranger in every new set of stories.

Once in a while, there might still have been the deep sting of heartache when she thought of one particular person who had not returned yet and was unlikely to do so anytime soon, but she'd been hoping in vain for so long that she'd grown somewhat numb to the inevitable sense of disappointment; Her days were not spent waiting, but in working, preparing, appreciating -

Memory itself might be a talent and part of the function she was meant to have in the world, but the skill to actually tell the tales, to spin them, present them, and to tell them at the right place at the right time to the right audience, now that was an art that she meant to have honed to perfection until the day of the second music should come. Not that she was longing for the end of the world, when she had much to do, much to learn and still so much to practice; But she hoped that she would at least have some comfort to look forward to when the time was over, much like Ents and Entwives hoped to cross paths at the end these days.

Lusina was not expecting anything in particular when she heard the delicate sounds of the wind chime which she'd hung next to the door – at most she would be glad to help yet another visitor check out just the right book, and maybe, if she was very lucky, someone would have come by to discuss the latest of her own works; She approached the vicinity of the entrance with a short list in her mind, having narrowed down the possible visitors based on their usual habits and tendencies – but even when her expectations came to nice at the sight of an unknown, fresh face, she was not yet especially perturbed – It had been known that a new wave of new arrivals from middle earth was being anticipated now that yet another age of the world was drawing to a close; If anything, a new customer with new stories and new thoughts ought to have been a cause for delight, which already brought a particular spring to her step. It was pretty common for new arrivals to rush in here as soon as they made landfall to finally get a taste of the vast stores of knowledge that were said to be available beyond the sea. Knowing from her own experience how difficult it could be even for one already acquainted with the uttermost west, she'd be glad if she could do her part to help someone adjust. "Welcome to the Great Royal Library of Tol Eressea! What can I help you with?"

The newcomer has a somewhat solemn, dignified look to him, even beyond what is usual for the late arrivals of these days, but many who cross the sea these days tend to have seen and experienced much; He appears Sindarin in looks and dress, but his long, fine hair is dark as evening and he's wearing a few tasteful, elegant ornaments; but of course many such children had been born in Hithlum, Eglarest or Lindon, including King Gil-Galad himself; There was a shadow of treelight in his face, such as was usual in people who were only a few generations removed from someone who had witnessed the ancient light in the flesh, but he could not have beheld it himself.

Lusina did not suspect anything outside of business as usual until the stranger spoke, not with the careful, accented Quenya of one who had only studied it as part of their schooling, but with the ease and fluency of a person who was brought up speaking it:

"Greetings, Madam. You must excuse me, for I am here on an errand of a somewhat personal nature. It has come to my awareness that one Lusina Tale-Weaver is said to work here at times. I would like to know when I might speak with her."

A fan perhaps? Though he seemed too solemn to be here for matters of leisure, and in any case his dress and bearing suggested that he must have been a respected person of high rank, a renowed scholar or perhaps a lord, at least back in Ennore.

Even so, she was still unguarded, as one could only be after many centuries of peace; She simply smile and disclosed the truth straight away, though she might not have, if she had been aware straight away of just who she was speaking to: "You're speaking to her right now. It's my pleasure. Now, might I know to whom I owe it?"

It would turn out that he was Elrond of Imladris, born of the last scions of Beleriand's most bountiful realms. She stood frozen as soon as the words suffused the air, thrown right back into the tainted past she had long struggled to move past, for had she not had a hand in the demise of at least one of them?

It was not surprising then, that he should be so skilled with their language; It had been said that Earendil mastered in all the many tongues of the diverse refugees in whose midst he grew up, and that this skill served him greatly on his journeys.

Perhaps it was foolish to expect that she would ever be done paying the price, for would the victims of her blades not remember her deeds forever? At least some of them must know that she was here – it couldn't be too hard to find out about the former wife of a prince; If they had ever heard where she was, perhaps they were avoiding this place because of her – but this one, at least, seemed to have chosen to confront her – Turukano's descendant indeed.

There was no honest argument she could contrive according to which she wouldn't owe it to him to stand here and take whatever words he had for here; They would just were words, and if they stung like hot irons, it would only be because of the truth of her deeds.

There was no mistaking it or getting around it, either; Had she recognized him, she might have pointed him to some other library staff who did not have a hand in the demise of his grandparents and no affiliation with his kidnappers; But he had come asking for her by name.

In her mind, she couldn't help but hear Maitimo's warnings concerning contact with the enemy: Stand straight, shoulders together, brace yourself, be strong now – he had once endured absolute loss of control by taking absolute control of himself, and this could not remotely compare to his ordeal.

The sons and daughters of Tirion were known to be many things, but not cravens;

So stand she did.

"So you were the wife of Maglor Feanorion? The Lady of Himring?"

If she had been less overtaken by this sudden accounting of debt, she might have noticed that his tone was not especially hostile; but if she had, she would have known to take it for deliberate restraint and mercy born from wisdom.

"I deny nothing. Everything you heard, I did, and everything you have to say, I will listen to, o son of Elwing."

"Great was the realm of Doriath, long its reign, vast its riches and rich its culture and regrettable its end; Great was the honor, and heavy the burden, to be carrying on its legacy. Great also was the splendor of Gondolin, where my sire was raised in his childhood-"

"I have no doubt that he must have been overjoyed to hear of your return; You had not seen him since the war of wrath, am I right?"

Her voice was moved with empathy and regret, and yet she feared that she had already been to presumptuous – Elrond, however, was not yet done saying what it was he had come to say. He spoke in a calm and measured manner – no doubt that he had pondered time and time again what he might say if this occasion should ever present itself: "That is true – and great were his accomplishments also, and blessed was he among men and elves. I have always striven to live up to such legacies, and long have I looked forward to speaking to him when I set foot on the mainland. But when I think back to my youth, his is not the first face that comes to mind. I met him as a general in the war of wrath; There I came to know him as a very noble, respectable man. It is with great pride that I have fought beneath his banner and tried to honor my parent's great sacrifice in each of my choices. But it was not them who put me to bed, who sang to me in the night or taught me my letters."

"It is to my greatest shame that you were robbed of that."

"Not as much as you think – My father once told me that he thought it fortunate that he was unaware of our survival – if he had not been, it would have made his choice that much harder, and it was the one he needed to make for our own good; and I've come to understand the meaning of his words very well since I became a parent myself; And he in turn was much comforted to learn that my brother and I had not been as deprived as we could have been -

As I said, it was not my father who put me to bed or taught me my letters, but there was another who did. Maglor Feanorion did not simply spare my life – He took me in and raised me as his own.

Of course, he was much tormented by the specter of his deeds, we were always on the run, and the specter of our first meeting hung between us; He could never be my father, and I cannot say that he was a _good_ guardian, but he was the one I had, and he gave me all that he could. I learned much from him, and from his brother as well – of leadership, of beauty, about fate, about the complexity of this world, and how even the best of intentions could be driven to awful ends; and of noble deeds, kindness and mercy blossoming even in the darkest of places. I cannot say that I would be who I am today if our paths had never crossed; I cannot say if I could have withstood the hard tests that I faced in my time. It is not that I have any illusions about their deeds, but strange as it may seem, I would say that there was love between us, and my brother and I did not look back at them without fondness. At last, we parted ways to enlist in the war, and we had not had news of them for many years when we heard of their final act – my brother and I were much shocked to hear of it, for we had been meaning to visit them and tell them of our deeds during the war, and of the Valar's pardon."

The more he spoke, the more silent she became, frozen in place with nary a gasp, completely and utterly defeated, the look of surprise drawn onto her face like a beautiful painting.

The words hurt deep, for his account awakened much old fondness just by how much it sounded like the cherished husband and honorary brother that she had known -

but most of all, the aesthete in her was overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of it – the tender little light of self-purification that genuinely wanted to shine, but couldn't conquer the depth of their personal darkness.

It was so beautiful she could cry; She wished much that she could have known this earlier, and at the same time she was glad that she didn't, and that this news only found its way to her when she would have moved on from the bitterness that would have resented him for at last becoming a father without making a mother out of her in turn; She was not at all surprised that it was he who had taken the two lost children under his wing; He always had this tender, nurturing streak to him which she had loved. His brother might not have had much of that left in him by the end, but no doubt he must have seen it as his duty to atone for having allowed for their uncles to come to harm under his watch.

She became aware, too, of the very oddness of this encounter, to be meeting for the first time the mature, world-wearied son of someone who had been her husband.

"So of course I did wonder once or twice about what sort of person he might have been married to. He did not speak much of you, but when he did, he was always full of regret. When we parted ways, he gave us a letter to deliver into your keeping, but you had sailed before we could find it. I cannot give it to you, for it has sunk to the floor of the seas with the bones of my brother. But I have the words graven in my memory, and I could recite it, if you wish -"

And then he produced – that harp, that self-same metal harp, and it all became far too much for her to bear.

"I retrieved this from the flames myself when we were driven from the gap- I don't know if you knew this but- It was his most favorite one, made for him by his own father when both the golden tree and the silver were in flower- " her failing voice forced her to halt and wipe the tear-stains from her face.

"Believe me, it is not something that he would part with lightly."

**IV.**

But one of the hardest people for Lusina to face, more than anyone she had known from her previous life, or any victim of the kinslayings, turned out to be Nerdanel.

Simple guilt was one thing, as was expecting loathing, but it was another to make any move within a complex constellation of simmering feelings and possible reason; There was a certain natural respect for her strong, discerning personality that had been there in the beginning, from before she'd had the need to steel herself to survive the grind wheels of Beleriand, and the genuine admiration that had come with time, and appreciated more in her absence; There was,also, uniquely, some perception of a double betrayal between them, the knowledge that they had parted on bad terms after rejecting her wisdom, laced with the regret that had followed, but also the certainty that she could not possibly be indifferent to the suffering of her sons; The ugly disputes surrounding their parting had done much to reveal the capacity for spite beneath her layers of patience, so who was to say that some part of her would not resent the princesses for abandoning their sons? Even if she probably had the wisdom to understand that they had chosen their own fates, how was Lusina to that she wasn't inwardly wondering if any of the former princesses couldn't have done something different, and how could she blame her for it, when she'd have such a hard time letting go of that thought herself?

Yet underneath it all slept the awareness that though she had been wiser in her choices, her mother-in-law might understand her feelings almost better than anyone else.

The matter was somewhat different for Marilwende; In her case, one could think that her in-laws might even feel responsible for what had befallen her, though she was never shy of owning her part of the blame; For Arqueniel, in turn, it was simply a matter of getting over her wounded pride and being ready to stomach the I-told-you-so; But she was far less concerned to make her stance pleasing to Feanaro or Curufinwe-the-Younger if neither of them was present. Sure, it might have been a much different matter if she'd arrived red-handed from her betrayal of Felagund and so minded as to laught about it, but her long stay in Ennore had humbled her considerably - Her first catch-up session with her mother-in-law had soon devolved into a vicious round of venting over the course of which the complaints took on an inexplicable tinge of fondness despite still extant disagreements on principle here and there. Nerdanel could live with disagreements so long as they stayed civilized and privately, it was not Arqueniel whom she considered the least repentant; She had always been a keen observer of people, so she would realize that beneath Marilwende's soft, pliant demeanor and gracious manner, she was probably the one whose convictions had changed the least.

But Lusina in particular long remained reluctant to speak to her. It was often thought by many that knew them both that someone really ought to persuade them to talk to each other - 'Someone' turned out to be Elrond, who had wasted no time at all to take on the role of all the 'somebody ought to's in this branch of the family (since Maitimo was presumably - hopefully! - taking a nice long rest from that duty in the halls of Mandos), and presumably anywhere else where he'd be welcome - One might hope that Arafinwe and his children would have the palace covered, but it was not hard to imagine that he had also become the designated voice of reason in New-Doriath. He seemed to make a very conscious choice of it - much of that was attributed to his father Earendil, who had chosen to forsake all he'd ever known for the sake of the world, and renounced his own wishes for his wife, but while Lusina would not presume to doubt that Earendil would have brought him up much the same way if he'd had the chance to do it, she was rather inclined to see the influence of those two men who had deliberately chosen the most dangerous territories and renounced power for the sake of peace;

At least, it was that perception of resemblance that made it hard to refuse the advice.

It was a rather bowed and decidedly penitent Lusina who visited Nerdanel at the house of her father; she wanted almost to slip back into the role of the dreamy, shy girl she'd once been, but the evident presence fire-forged field commander from Beleriand was impossible to ignore, seeing as it was her deeds that had necessitated the guilt.

At first, the sculptress received her with no indication of displeasure, civil and patient as ever. She answered the door still in her work apron, coated with white dust, and invited her to tea - for a while, they spoke mostly of the developments in their respective artistic pursuits, giving no indication that either of them had ever been a princess, but it was evident that both had kept an eye on the other's work; Lusina had come to many of Nerdanel's exhibits in the last millennia, acting the part of an unrelated spectator concealed beneath one of her old travel hoods left from the phase of seclusion that had followed her return to Valinor; Nerdanel proved to have distinctive opinions about the Tale-Weaver's latest works. They both had good reasons to keep busy.

But from the subject of art, one might easily stray towards music, and from there, the progression was obvious, and too compelling to be avoided; Lusina herself broached the subject, the former rebel in her bones having grown tired of enduring the shame, summoning old courage to end the piteous tiptoe dance:

"You were right. I ought to have turned back a long, long time before I did; But I was foolish and blinded as well, and perhaps even vain - I found it hard to let go of somebody so special."

"Special! Bah! Put that out of your head!" At last, the sculptress' true feelings were revealed, and though there was bitterness there, it was not exactly allocated where her honorary daughter might have put it: "Forget about 'the greatest of the Eldar' - You don't know how much I wish that no one had told him any of those things that went to his head! He was never any of that to me - He was just someone I met on my travels. I didn't even know he was the crown prince until after I got him that blasted apprenticeship with my father; And I was fool enough to feel sorry for him. To think that it was only right that he should wish for me to know him first without his name and the tale that goes with it. I thought he was my _friend_ who understood me, and then, in the end, he turned out to be just another conceited, close-minded fool just like everyone else!

Of course it was flattering, to think that I alone was discerning enough to understand him, that I had been wise enough to put in the work. It was nice, to fancy myself the only one he listens to, to be one of the tiny handful of people that he trusted, the one thing in this world that he doesn't hate - I should have known that he would turn around and suspect me just like he did with everybody else. He **let me down**. But still what drives me up the walls is that he stopped listening to me! Tell me, did it ever occur to him just why you and the others were ready to follow him into exile up to some cold, dark forsaken place? 'Cause I much doubt that it was because you were all just waiting to stab him in the back. Did he think that his father would get to just waltz back into the palace like nothing happened when it was all over? Cause I think not even the king thought that. How much more could he possibly want? But of course he would never be satisfied. He to take them all with him, every single one of them! Untold years I bore them, I nursed them, I cared for them, I kept supporting them in all their endeavors even once they were adultsm, and now my arms are empty, and I shall never see them again. He couldn't so much as leave me one - and the worst is that they followed him. All of them! I'd been holding out some hope for Maitimo and Ambarussa, but not even them! Not. Even. Them. And if they so insist on emulating every single one of their father's questionable life choices, then you were only right to leave them to their fate! You need not apologize for that to _anyone_, least of all to me!"

But the daughter of Mahtan was a sensible woman in the end, and she knew the sudden heat of her anger for what it was; And never could she have been hard-nosed, vindictive or prideful enough to reduce her own children to merely their crimes; The more the pent-up rage was spent, the more other things began to shine through, and the more her voice took up a soft quality that few had come to hear.

"And now everyone runs their mouth about them. As if they know anything at all about them. The accursed kinslayers. The Half-Orcs. 'The infamous sons of Feanor.'" the actually enuncianted the often sited epithet in Sindarin there, pressing them through a bitter, sardonic smirk. "I wish that, just once, they could have chosen to be the sons of Nerdanel."

It was then that Lusina did something that the girl that first met Makalaure at the ball could not possibly have done. Every ounce of courage and conviction that she gained shine through from her words like the light from within a sacred jewel:

"But Nerdanel - _they did_. Many times, though you were not there to see it. They all chose to keep the names that you had given them, except for Curufinwe - and he was trying so hard not to miss you that I can only conclude that he he might have felt your absence the hardest of them all. Both Makalaure and I used to think of Maitimo as someone quite unshakeable, but even he didn't always know what to do... and whenever that happened, he would ask what _you_ would have chosen, or how you would have counselled him, how you might have dispelled the stife - I myself often asked myself that question as I tried my hardest to fill your place as best I could. In times of hardship, Makalaure tried to be there for his brothers as you would have done; And of course, you never stopped being an influence on his artistic vision, either... or mine. Of course, none of us could really fill the hole you had left...- "

"Say no more, daughter of mine."

That day, they parted ways with an embrace, and resolved to meet again, to witness a modern stageplay interpretation of of an old ballad, originally penned by none other than the infamous Prince Makalaure. It was expected to be a controversial performance set to leave very few feather's unruffled - it was not anything that should be missed by any consummate lover of stories, or even a great visionary in the field of innovative art; Even so, neither of them had been meaning to attend, and would have been hard-pressed to attain seats at the last minute if they had not known the son-in-law of the high king's daughter, who had booked several seats as soon as the play was first announced;

By the very nature of the event and the way in which it had been publicised, its organizers could only be pleasantly surprised to hear of their unexpected attendance - even so, given their previous track records, most of them expected that they would decline to be seated with the royal family. But that was not so - Both mother and wife arrived in plain sight, without disguise, arm in arm, and ready and primsed to parttake in the discourse. They even brought with them yet another unexpected guest, one that no one was quite sure where to seat, or how to even adress; The current queen was most certainly lady Earwen, and 'queen mother' would have commonly referred to a tall, golden-haired woman who now lived on the holy mountain.

The High King, however, had at this point lived through so many twists, turns and upheavals that his already considerable patience had become as unshakeable as the encircling mountains themselves, and simply greeted her with an unflappable smile. "Well met! Shall we have the loremasters devise a new word to describe our relation, or should I just address you as my stepmother, since you are still technically married to my father? Have you any news of him, or perhaps of my youngest son?"

After the performance, dowager queen Therinde disappeared back to whence she came, and all the talk her appearance had sparked would be eclipsed by a new scandal as soon as the very next month: As it so happened, Princess Itarille was out of town that month, gone to see her son in the tower he shared with his wife, and in her stead, Princess Irisse had brought with her a certain man, stuffed into jeweled blue and silver robes that he barely filled, his mess of sable hair not quite tamed by the aggressive array of ornament she had put on him, decked out with her father's sigils all over, though the ornate hairstyle prevented his bangs from doing their usual part in concealing the tattoo on the left side of his face, a rite of passage he was made to endure when his father first deigned to dignify him with a name - and for all that she might be determined to keep a brave face and no more inclined to grudges than her eldest brother, it was known far and wide that Princess Irisse did not ever intend to take back her treacherous husband if he ever were to return, nor even if all the waters of the world were to freeze solid all at once.

This had required various explicit permits and prior warnings, lest anyone should run off screaming when confronted with their nightmares of days past. He had no opinion on the performance, found the theater much too cramped, and was not too keen to repeat the experience, but he proved that he could do it, and that his mother need not hide him in the attic for the remainder of eternity. He sat with some of his relatives and even consented to indulge in the old family tradition of_ very_ awkward handshakes with his cousin Gil-Galad.

**V.**

In order for everyone to agree, the meeting could not be held at Formenos, not in Tirion, nor anywhere else that would have been held as much too charged for any of the parties present.

In a display of her famed wisdom, it was Nerdanel who suggested a picturesque stretch of beach known to her from the travels of her youth, and that was where they all gathered.

Even so, Lusina did not think that she would ever get used to seeing Miriel walking around beneath the sunlight, a patch of white in the colorful world of the living, even beneath the shelter of a pale-colored sunhat, like an image stepped out from the pages of the past; She must have thought the same herself, for she rarely left the halls of Vaire, but this, of course, was a very special occasion.

Though it might not have meant much to the other women, it was not without sorrow that the master sculptress regarded the scenery, watching the azure waves breaking themselves on the pristine sands:

"It would be exactly ten-thousand years today. It's not very far off from where I first met his father. It was something of a stormy day, and I was eager to get back to the city, but that never stopped him. He was looking for the seashells that would be washed up here by the waves, trying to sort them according to their kindreds, and especially looking for any that had any kind of error or quirk that was never intended for by the plans of Lady Yavanna, altogether new kinds brought forth by the changefulness of the world. It was one of those passing obsessions of his – these are rare here of course, but he hoped that the storms would wash up some from distant shores..."

"I can see why he might have been interested in that, " mused the erstwhile queen, thoughtfully eyeing the shallows.

"He was so absorbed in that work that I had a hard time getting his attention at first – I was surprised to see anyone out here at all, especially out in this tempest – at times I had thought that I was just about the only one who knew to appreciate this distant places, and he, of course, had thought the same. Then, just a little later – ten thousand years ago to the day – we happened to come across this place once again, not long after Maitimo was born. I don't suppose either of us should have been surprised when our next son turned out to be a poet."

Irisse giggled at that – she had adamantly refused to be dissuaded from attending this event. "I remember how uncle Feanaro used to boast that the world would have been a much fairer place if Makalaure had been around for the making of the great music."

"He never did know when to shut up." fumed Nerdanel, though the passage of time had long since softened her bitterness to mere embarrassment. But though her mother-in-law had been often in agree with her ever since they actually had the opportunity to meet, her view differed just this once:

"Actually, I'm pretty sure that at least some of the Valar agree – at least the ones I've spoken to. It's something that they particularly look forward to concerning the second music."

Not far from them, Lusina was gazing out at the horizon -

Beyond the beach itself, the deep turquoise of the ocean could be seen to extend somewhat further, melding at last with the blue of the sky, where in between the glimmering stars, the curse of a pale blue sphere could be glimpsed.

"Is that even something that could happen anymore? For anything from down there to wash up here? If I took a message in a bottle and threw it in the sea, could it arrive in Ennore?"

"Probably not." judged Nerdanel. "It would probably be just like the outer sea."

"Why? What's there?" asked Irisse, perking up in curiosity.

Nerdanel could not help but recall but the days when she and some of her brothers and cousins would come rushing to ask her sons countless questions about their latest journey.

"Nothing much – but as you get further from the shore, the water becomes thinner and thinner, more akin to the shell of the outer air that surrounds us, and beyond a certain post, it won't carry any boats, and certainly no swimmers."

"Then I suppose I must thank you for convincing my son to tie a rope around his waist before he went to try knocking on the walls of the world."

It was only after no one joined in with her snickering that Irisse realized that the two had been referring an actual event. "Wait, that actually happened?"

"I'm afraid so. I was actually there." Lusina confirmed, still gazing out into the blue with a certain sense of bittersweetness. "Didn't Curvo or Tyekormo ever mention it you?"

"I thought the two of them were just pulling my leg with some ridiculous story!"

It was just about then that Marilwende came to inform them that everything was ready for the festivities – it was her who had insisted on being the one to bring the sunshade, the picknick blanket and other decorations from her hold in Formenos, though it seemed like it was Arqueniel who had mostly been calling the shots about how everything was to be assembled and readied for the feast.

The men had taken responsibility for the refreshments according to traditional Noldorin decorum – the house of Feanor was always somewhat old-fashioned after all – and were presumed to be engaged in it still, though their role in the proceedings should not be underestimated. Indeed, Elrond had been the chief organizer of this encounter - Lusina was only moderately surprised to discover that he was already acquainted with next to everyone – He would have known Telperinquar from their time as Gil-Galad's vassals of course, but it turned out that Arqueniel had served under him long after and that he had even joined the slim ranks of the people she respected. He had sought out Nerdanel of his own accord and probably spent long hours speaking of whatever fine nuances and philosophies exceptionally wise people are wont to converse – and perhaps, of what it was to be parted from one's children with no end in sight.

He even knew Marilwende, who had quite simply approached him some time in Arafinwe's palace not long after his inofficial admission into their branch of the family, or what remained of it. Apparently, she had asked him to instruct her in use of the sight at some point, having figured that it was not too late to learn while the life of Arda lasted – but it was Lusina herself who had thought of fetching Miriel; Her presence had taken some getting used to, but fortunately, they happened to have all the time in the world.

Finally, Irisse had got wind of what they were planning (perhaps through a certain taciturn miner), and simply invited herself.

"Say, Arqueniel, are you sure that Tyelpe and the others can handle the cake? I'd be worried that his kitchen skills have not seen much practice ever since he got to be a lord in his own right."

"Impossible. His father and I made very sure to drill some self-sufficiency into him; and I'd wager that Elrond should have had much the same experience with Makalaure. If I were you, I would worry more about your brother. He promised to bring cake, but you two would have had the palace servants at your beck and call the whole time… can he even be trusted with an oven?"

"Oh come on, you wound us!"

Marilwende giggled. "I'm sure Findekano will be alright…"

Irisse might have responded something more to this if she had not been distracted by the long-awaited arrival of her brother, who was carrying a cake nearly as spectacular as his taste in hair decorations and wasted no time to present it with his broad trademark smile: "Surpriiise!"

It was hard to say what old incident long before any of their births Miriel might have been reminded of, but she found his enthusiasm somewhat amusing.

Nerdanel, meanwhile, was much more interested in the tray which Telperinquar had brought with him: "Do I smell father's lemon tarts?"

"Not quite. I came up with a few adjustments to the recipe during my time in Eregion. I'd bring these to the guild-house sometimes if I had everyone working overtime. I might have been in charge, but I've always found it important to foster a sense of cooperation..."

It was not only out of maternal pride that Arqueniel chose to vouch for him: "They're better than Curufinwe used to make them, and that's saying something!"

Irisse's response suggested that this was an exciting prospect, but she was soon distracted by what Elrond had brought with him: "But what might this be?"

"I don't suppose any of you would be familiar with this. This was fairly popular in the Mannish kingdom of Arnor in the early third age. My guests were usually quite fond of it."

In a company such as this one, this would inevitably yield numerous follow-up questions; Much conversation was had, both in warm reminiscence of bygone days and in discussion of each person's current pursuits. One could easily have come away with the impression that this Prince Makalaure had done a great many other things in his long time besides commit numerous infamous crimes and meet a tragic, unfortunate fate.

Lusina had of course sat down with everyone else, but perhaps out of some old habit, she spent the first few moments staying quietly at the sidelines. It was only after everyone was settled and conversation on the verge of dying down that she volunteered her ponderings:

"I wonder if they're also all together right now, having a celebration of their own..."

Marilwende, who happened to be sitting next to her, thought a little on this before responding no less quietly: "I'm actually not sure. Time passes differently there; And there is certainly no cake in the halls of Mandos. But I can't imagine that they don't think of him just as often as we do – more, probably, since we have things to do."

"It's just Makalaure who is all by himself, alone with all his regrets, for what little they counted for... The last time we spoke, I did little but curse his name, and now we don't even have the same ocean connecting us."

"Perhaps not.." Marilwende admitted, placing one supportive hand on her law-sister's shoulders. "But you know, I don't think that his repentance counted for nothing. He might not be here with us, but, he's getting to spend his days where he can feel the wind in his hair and the sun on his skin… that's something at least, isn't it?"

~The End~

…

The challenge I set for myself for the epilogue is that I wanted to lead this towards an uplifting or at least hopeful conclusion without doing something obvious like having Maglor arrive in Valinor or having Feanor & the others released from Mandos.

Maybe not a "happy" ending per se, but at least a "life goes on" ending – hence the decision to end it with a casual family-reunion type scene.

IDK how Maeglin ended up in here, he just showed up; It made for a logical counterpoint to how the revelations about Aredhel's misadventures feature in Act III, also it seemed fitting as a contrast to have one chick who is distinctly *not* planning on Taking Him Back (Sorry Eol. Should've done less stabbing)

In hindsight, I'm mad that it never occurred to me to have some familiar faces make a cameo appearance during the sack of Doriath, perhaps Oropher and Babby Thranduil, seeing as they ended up so defined by the downfall of Doriath and how their familiar faces would've added an extra gut punch – But the Doriath chapters were already done when I thought of it and I couldn't fit it in a sensible manner.

I also wanted to have a flashback scene in which Feanor dispenses well-meaning but totally counterproductive life advice to one of his sons (probably Curufin), but I couldn't fit it in.

I would also like to add that I _like_ Thingol and consider him an interesting gray figure in his own right, this story just happens to be from the PoV of his enemies XD (After all he did, for example, send some aid to Brethil contrary to what our protagonists suppose in Act IV)

If I learned one thing from making my way through 'Unfinished Tales' and "the history of middle earth", it's that I should definitely finish all my wips and generally bring more of my ideas to completion. So I'm very glad proud this thing is finished with a bow on top. Now onto the other wips...

O professor most esteemed, why didst thou not finish thine fair scribbles?

Mr. Tolkien was definitely self aware of this since he explicitly gave "brilliant, but never finished anything" to Feanor as an explicit character flaw. It's easy to picture Feanor like Euler, DaVinci or Gauss, who invented everything 100 years early but only published a fraction, but I personally HC that Feanor's research notes read *exactly like the HoME*s, complete with endless amendations, footnotes and a tendency to peter out before the most interesting part. Kinda makes me consider a ff where his sons spend the entire siege of angband wrangling his research notes into some publishable form, and having it focus on the relationship between Maedhros and Curufin...


End file.
